LB 1059 
Copy 1 



? « t 







M l! 


i 



mk 



THE GENERAL VALUE OF VISUAL SENSE 
TRAINING IN CHILDREN 



5b«rattonal ^ayrhnlngg iHnnngraphg 

No. 15 



THE 

GENERAL VALUE OF VISUAL SENSE 
TRAINING IN CHILDREN 



BY 

Chang Ping Wang 




BALTIMORE 

WARWICK & YORK, Ixc 
1916 



Monogprapf? 



\0^°^ 



"-^•i^ 



Copyright. 1916, by 
Warwick & York, Inc. 




y {P© 



NOV 14 1916 



^CLA445688 



EDITOR'S PREFACE 

Contributions to the experimental study of the trans- 
fer of training (formal discipline) scarcely need either 
apology or introduction in a period when, despite the 
considerable amount of investigation, sp very much 
still remains undetermined with respect to the amount 
of such transfer and the mechanism by means of which 
it takes place. 

The special features of this contribution by Dr. 
Wang, a Chinese government student at the Univer- 
sity of Michigan, lie in the use of school children as 
subjects and in the use of sense-training as the medium 
of experimentation. In this latter aspect his study 
will be particularly welcome from the light it throws 
upon the issue of sense-training, which is almost a 
fetish of the adherents of the, at present, so popular 
Montessori method. 

G. M. Whipple. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS 



Introduction 1 

Analytical review of previous experiments 5 

The individual method 6 

The one-group method 7 

The two-group method 8 

The three-group method 11 

New experimental data 13 

Experiment 1 

Aim 13 

Subjects 14 

The trained function 16 

Results of training 20 

Summary 26 

The tested functions 26 

Discrimination of pitch 28 

Summary 39 

Discrimination of shades of color 39 

Summary 45 

Discrimination of size 46 

Summarj' 58 

Experiment 2 

Description of experiment 59 

Simimary 67 

Experiment 3 

Description of experiment 68 

Summary 74 

Conclusions 75 

Bibliography 81 

vii 



INTRODUCTION 

There are two types of disciplinists. There are 
those of the old type who beheve that the mental 
power developed by the training of one function will 
benefit equally all other functions. This type is repre- 
sented by the man who claims that any kind of study, 
no matter what it may be, will prepare for life, so long 
as that study is done well. The later type of dis- 
ciplinist is less sweeping in his claims. He believes 
that the training of a specific function, such as memor- 
izing poetry, will benefit all other kinds of memories, 
the general function of memory. This type is repre- 
sented by the man who advocates studies in schools 
for the development of the various mental functions: 
arithmetic develops the power of accuracy; Latin, the 
power of analysis; sense education, the power of ob- 
servation. The old type of disciplinist is scarcely to 
be found among educators of today, but the later 
type still dominates, in certain respects, the educa- 
tional world. Many writers have already pointed 
out instances showing how some of the most prom- 
inent educators, both in Europe and America, have 
overestimated the importance of this type of dis- 
cipline. Thorndike, Ruediger, Fracker, Winch and 
others have not only attacked it, but have also demon- 
strated by experiments the limitations of certain 
specific functions. These functions are selected from 
those general functions which we designate as mem- 
ory, discrimination, or reasoning. Ttie results show 
that there are man}' kinds of memories, discrimina- 
tions and reasonings. One kind of memory, after 



2 VISUAL SENSE TRAINING IN CHILDREN 

much training, may not affect certain other memories 
at all. The same has been found true in other fields 
of mental functioning. 

It was the purpose of the writer to continue the ex- 
perimentation within the field of discrimination and, if 
possible, to contribute something to our knowledge of 
the extent, amount, and means of generalization, or 
transfer, upon which points there is as yet no general 
agreement. By extent of transfer is here meant the 
range of influence which the training of a specific func- 
tion has over untrained functions; and by amount of 
transfer, the aggregate of improvement in any specific 
untrained function as a result of the training. 

With regard to the extent of transfer Thorndike 
says: '' Improvement in any single mental function 
rarely brings about equal improvement in any other 
function, no matter how similar, for the working of 
every mental function-group is conditioned by the 
nature of the data in each particular case."^ But 
Fracker denies this by saying : ' ' Improvement in many 
cases is absolutely greater in amount in the test than 
in the training. "^ it is evident that this question of 
the extent of transfer needs further investigation. 

With regard to the amount of transfer each experi- 
ment has shown a different result. This is due partly 
to different methods of calculation and partly to the 
testing of different functions. In some experiments 
adults act as subjects and in others children. In his 
calculations one experimenter uses points to denote 
the amount of transfer while others use per cent. 
Some writers take the improvement of the trained 

^ Thorndike, E. L., Educational Psychology, 1903, p. 91. 
- Fracker, G. C, Psychological Review Monograph Supplement, VoL 
0, No. 2, p. 99. 



INTRODUCTION 3 

function as the basis of calculation; and others, the 
record made in the preliminary test. Naturally the 
results are not uniform. There is a special need just 
now for standardization in our methods of experimen- 
tation as well as in the methods of calculating our 
results. 

With regard to the means of transfer different writers 
seem to have reached different conclusions. To quote 
Colvin: ^'The question whether the results are due 
to functioning of identical elements (Thorndike); to 
improvement of habitual methods of recording facts 
(James); to training the attention and will power 
(Scripture and Davis) ; to divesting the essential process 
of the unessential factors, greater habituation and more 
economical adaptation of attention (Coover and 
Angell); to the effective use of mental imagery and 
properly controlled attention (Fracker); to the devel- 
opment of ideals (Bagley, Ruediger, and Ruger) ; to 
general improvement in technique of learning, atten- 
tion and will-power, but chiefly to a sympathetic inter- 
action of allied memory functions (Ebert and Meumann) , 
or to all of these, or to some other factors as yet not 
analyzed out, will doubtless for a long time offer a 
fruitful field of inquiry. ''^ 

The present experiments were undertaken with these 
different questions in mind. Reaction time is taken 
throughout to detect temporal differences, which play 
an important part in sense discrimination of all kinds. 
Children are employed as subjects, because there is a 
suspicion among educational psychologists that pos- 
sibly specific training has a greater value for them than 
for adults, on account of the faster rate of physical 
and mental development in childhood. This suspicion 



'Colvin, S. S., The Learning Process, pp. 241-2. 



4 VISUAL SENSE TRAINING IN CHILDREN 

is voiced by Foster who, writing on the effect of practice 
upon visuahzing and upon the reproduction of visual 
impressions, concludes his article by remarking: "Speci- 
fic practice is demanded for best results and becomes 
quickly effective. It seems, therefore, as if the value 
of formal training of our kind has been overestimated. 
However, our experiments were made upon adults 
who were already trained in habits of attentive obser- 
vation, and we have no right or wish to extend our con- 
clusions in wholesale fashion. It may be that, for 
immature and untrained persons, practice in visual 
reproduction might possess a general value that was 
not discovered under our conditions."^ 

The writer is indebted to Dr. J. F. Shepard, Dr. F. S. 
Breed, Professor W. B. Pillsbury and Professor A. 
S. Whitney for their suggestions, supervision and 
encouragement throughout the work. He wishes to 
thank the Board of Education of Ann Arbor, Michi- 
gan, for giving permission to carry on the work and 
especially Miss C. L. Dicken, Principal of the W. S. 
Perry School, and the parents who kindly consented 
to let their childien act as subjects. 



^ Foster, W. S., The Effect of Practice upon Visualizing and upon 
the Reproduction of Visual Impressions, Jour. Educational Psychol- 
ogy, Vol. 2, p. 21. 



ANALYTICAL REVIEW OF PREVIOUS 
EXPERIMENTS 

The origin of the doctrine of formal disciphne dates 
as far back as Plato, who wrote: ^^and have you further* 
remarked that those who have the natural talent for 
calculation are generally quick at every other kind of 
knowledge; and even the dull if they have an arith- 
metical training gain in quickness if not in any other 
way."^ But it was during the time of the scholastics 
and humanists that this doctrine reached its zenith. 
The scholastics regarded the mind as a logical machine 
for the purpose of grinding out cut-and-dried truth, 
while the humanists claimed that ancient languages 
could furnish all the mental nourishment and power 
necessary for life. The modern criticism of the doc- 
trine was launched by the German Herbartians, who 
maintained "that since all mental exercise takes its 
rise in a definite mental content, its character is neces- 
sarily determined by its origin. "« To these people 
was due the credit for having started the movement 
toward experimental investigation. 

For a chronological review of the experiments which 
have been performed the reader is referred to Heck's 
Mental Discipline and Educational Values; Thorndike's 
Educational Psychology, Vol. 2; Bagley's Educative 
Process, or Colvin's The Learning Process. It would 
be well for us to take this opportunity to review the 
experimental methods which seem to demand descrip- 
tion. Since people have begun to test the doctrine 



^ Plato, Republic, Book 7. 

6 Ruediger, W. C., Principles of Education, p. 96. 



6 VISUAL SENSE TRAINING IN CHILDREN 

of formal discipline by controlled experiments, there 
has been gradually built up a regular method for con- 
ducting such experiments. From the work of William 
James, who performed the first controlled test of the 
spreading influence of one specially trained memory 
function upon memory functions of a different content, 
to the present day, there have been four methods used, 
each an improvement over its precedessor. The very 
first used may be called 

The Individual Method 

To William James should be given the credit for 
first using this method, in which only one person acts 
as subject, usually the experimenter himself. In 
James' own words: 

"In order to test the opinion so confidently expressed in the text, 
I have tried to see whether a certain amount of daily training in learn- 
ing poetry by heart will shorten the time it takes to learn an entirely 
different kind of poetry. During eight successive days I learned 158 
hnes of Victor Hugo's 'Satyr.' The total number of minutes required 
for this was 131% — it should be said that I had learned nothing by 
heart for many years. I then, working for twenty-odd minutes daily, 
learned the entire first book of Paradise Lost, occupying 38 days in 
the process. After this training I went back to Victor Hugo's poem, 
and found that 158 additional lines (divided exactly as on the former 
occasion) took me 1513^ minutes. In other words, I committed my 
Victor Hugo to memory before the training at the rate of a line in 50 
seconds, after the training at the rate of a line in 57 seconds, just the 
opposite result from that which the popular view would lead one to 
expect. But as I was perceptibly fagged with other work at the time 
of the second batch of Victor Hugo, I thought that might explain the 
retardation; so I persuaded several other persons to repeat the test."^ 

This method of testing the doctrine of formal dis- 
cipline has the advantage of direct introspection, es- 
pecially when the experimenter is a good psychologist. 
On the other hand, we feel uncertain whether the results 
obtained will represent the average experience of the 



' James, Wm., The Principles of Psycholojy, Vol. I, pp. 666-667. 



REVIEW OF PREVIOUS EXPERIMENTS 7 

mass. We hesitate to apply such individual conclu- 
sions to every-day use, since researches have proved 
that mental traits vary as much as physical traits. 
For example, the following table taken from Thorndike,^ 
showing the ability of 4th-grade girls in thinking of 
opposites of words, illustrates the curve of distribution 
in one mental trait, and shows clearly how wide a 
range of ability there is in that trait. 

Number 
of 

Children 

bv 3 girls 

5 " 

10 " 
33 " 
36 " 
29 " 
16 " 

11 " 

3 " 

To eliminate the individual variations, then, a 
number of subjects are employed, and this may be 
called the 

One-Group Method 

One of the first to use this method was Dr. E. L. 
Thorndike, who has contributed so much to the study 
of individual differences. He describes his experi- 
ment briefly as follows: 

"Individuals practiced estimating the areas of rectangles from 10 
to 100 sq. cm. in size until a very marked improvement was attained. 
The improvement in accuracy for areas of the same size but of differ- 
ent shape due to this training was only 44 per cent as great as that 
for areas of the same shape and size. For areas of the same shape, 
but from 140-300 sq. cm. in size, the improvement was 30 per cent 
as great. For areas of different shape and from 140-400 sq. cm. in 
size, the improvement was 52 per cent as great. "^ 



Score Made 


in Test with 


Opposites 


—9 to 


—5 


—4 " 





" 


4 


5 " 


9 


10 " 


14 


15 " 


19 


20 " 


24 


25 " 


29 


30 " 


34 


35 " 


39 


40 " 


44 



8 Thorndike, E. L., Principles of Teaching, p. 74. 

^ Thorndike, E. L., Educational Psychology, Vol. II, p. 397. 



8 VISUAL SENSE TRAINING IN CHILDREN 

The result stated in this experiment was obtained 
by averaging the totals of the practiced individuals. 
In this way individual peculiarities are in a measure 
eliminated. Wherever a large number of subjects are 
available, the result will be safer. 

Though this was an advance in the technique of 
experimentation, there was still room for improvement. 
All Thorndike's subjects were given the various tests 
C^ areas of the same size but of different shape," 
''areas of the same shape but from 140-300 sq. cm. in 
size," and ''areas of different shape and from 140-400 
sq. cm. in size") before as well as after the training 
("areas of rectangles from 10 to 100 sq. cm. in size") 
took place. The first or preliminary test really amounts 
to a training in itself. If this is the case, there is no 
way to tell how much of the 44, 30 and 52 per cent 
improvements, respectively, were due to the first test 
and how much to the training received from the prac- 
tice in estimating areas of rectangles from 10 to 100 
sq. cm. in size. To separate these two factors, im- 
provement due to practice and improvement due to 
the preliminary test, educators have since introduced 
the 

Two-Group Method 

The two-group method means, as the name implies, 
that the subjects to be tested are evenly divided, ac- 
cording to physical and mental development, into two 
groups. While both groups are tested, first before 
and then after the practice or training, only one of 
the groups receives the training. There are several 
advantages to this method of procedure. By the use 
of the untrained group the possible effects of the pre- 
liminary test, maturation, and incubation are not con- 
fused with transfer effects. By a comparison of the 



REVIEW OF PREVIOUS EXPERIMENTS 9 

two groups, trained and untrained, the practice effect, 
if there be any, of the prehminary test of the trained 
group can not be mistaken for transfer, since on the 
average this practice wih be the same for the two 
groups. In a similar way the two-group method ehmi- 
nates the possible confusion of transfer and maturation 
effects. Manifestly, on the average the two groups 
will mature equally. Psychologists who are familial 
with the Binet tests can show us in children mental 
growth of two or even three years during one year of 
physical maturation. If experiments are performed 
with children as subjects, there is always this factor 
of maturation involved, especially when several months 
are allowed to pass between the preliminary and the 
final tests. 

There is possibly another factor that the two-group 
method checks off, namely, the incubation tendency; 
that is, the tendency for a function to improve in 
efficiency during a period of disuse. This tendency 
is best illustrated by Swift's ball-tossing experiment. 
He had five adult subjects work at '' keeping two balls 
going [in the air] with one hand, receiving and throwing 
one while the other is in the air . . . . The balls used 
were of solid rubber and weighed 122.6 and 130.2 

grams Their diameters were 42 and 44 mm., 

respectively The daily program consisted of ten 

trials, the subject in each case continuing the throwing 
until he failed to catch one or both of the balls. ''i*^ 
Summarizing the results of two of the subjects who 
took the trouble to test the incubation tendency, 
Thorndike writes, ^'Subject H, having begun with a 
score of about 4, and having reached, in the last six 

^° Swift, E. J., Studies in the Psychology and Physiology of Learn- 
ing, Am. Jour. Psych., Vol. 14, p. 201. 



10 VISUAL SENSE TRAINING IN CHILDREN 

days of forty-two days of practice, average scores of 
50, 82, 92, 88, 68 and 105, was retested every thirty 
days for five months, and attained average scores of 
70, 80, 140, 110, and 120. Being then tested after 
four hundred and eighty-one days, he attained an 
average score of 119. Being then tested after over 
four years, he attained an average score of 5; on the 
following day, one of 10; and on the successive follow- 
ing days, average scores of 18, 20, 26, 35, 66, 60, 45, 
100 and 160. Subject E, having begun with a score 
of about 10, and having reached, in the last six days 
of fourteen days of practice, average scores of 31, 53, 
80, 105, 115 and 127, was retested every thirty days 
for five months, 11 and attained average scores of 115, 
145, 155, 230 and 325. Being next tested after an 
interval of 463 days, he attained an average score of 
152. "12 It is possibly true that 'Hhe disuse of a mental 
function weakens it, and the amount of weakening 
increases, the longer the lack of exercise, "i^ but at 
the time while the learning remains fresh, as is the 
case with the two subjects cited above who showed a 
decided improvement in their five months' re-test, 
the incubation tendency was still going on. Usually 
an experiment of this kind does not last more than a 
few months. But if the incubation tendency is involved 
the two-group method eliminates it. 

It is clear that the two-group method has been a 
great help in experiments of this kind. Though the 
intention has been to check off the influence due to 
the preliminary test, it eventually eliminates the influ- 
ence of maturation as well as the incubation tendency. 



^^ "There was some practice with the left hand during the first 
thirty days interval in the case of both H and E." 

i^thorndike, E. L., Educational Psychology, Vol. II, pp. 309-310. 
^^Ibid., p. 300. 



REVIEW OF PREVIOUS EXPERIMENTS 11 

Three-Group Method 

While carrying on the present experiment the writer 
has found it expedient to make use of an additional 
group. The object of this was to determine the amount 
of difference due to changed conditions of the weather, 
from winter to spring; of the experimentation room, 
from the basement to the first floor; and of the daily 
program of studies (all the subjects had been promoted 
in their grades at the time of the final test). If an 
experiment is carried on for months, as was the present 
one, a change of weather and of the daily program of 
studies can not be helped. These changes may prove 
to be more or less favorable to the final test, and hence 
both the trained and the untrained groups may test 
out better or worse than under the conditions of the 
preliminary test. A third group, taking neither train- 
ing nor the preliminary test, but simply the final test 
together with the other two groups, will show just 
how much difference there is at the final test, and 
whether the trained and the untrained groups have 
improved or deteriorated. In case the third group 
yields a better result than did the two other groups 
at their preliminary test, it will indicate that the 
conditions of the final test are more favorable; if 
a worse result, that the conditions at the final test are 
less favorable; and if the same result, that will confirm 
whatever difference there may be between the trained 
and the untrained groups. 

The three-group method will prove useful for another 
reason. When poetry and prose are used to test 
memory, or when arithmetical problems are used to 
test reasoning, or when the marking of letters and 
figures are used to test discrimination, it is almost im- 



12 VISUAL SENSE TRAINING IN CHILDREN 

possible to find materials of equal difficulty for both 
the preliminary and the final tests. Consequently, 
there have been in the past experiments, cases where 
both trained and untrained groups have shown im- 
provements and other cases where both have shown a 
retrogression on account of the material chosen for 
the final test. If the material for the final test has 
been easier than that used in the preliminary, both 
trained and untrained groups have shown improvement 
and if the material chosen for the final test has been 
more difficult, both groups have shown a decrease in 
efficiency. Just how much easier or more difficult 
the material chosen for the final test has been than 
that of the preliminary, a third group would have 
shown. For these reasons the writer believes that 
future experimenters may find the additional group 
helpful. 



NEW EXPERIMENTAL DATA 

Experiment 1 
Aim 

As has been stated in the introduction, since there 
is yet considerable disagreement as to the means, extent 
and amount that a specifically trained function may 
affect other functions, it became the purpose of this 
study to throw some light on these various points by 
using new data. 

A word should be added to show why sense discrimi- 
nation was chosen for experiment. It was thought 
that work with sense discrimination can be made very 
simple; that it is easy, too, for use with the children. 
Moreover, through the influence of Montessori there 
has been of late somewhat of a revival of interest in 
sense training. Her visit to America in 1913 aroused 
much interest, and her book. The Montessori Method, 
has gone through several editions. Her explanation 
of her theory will prove enlightening: ''We cannot 
create observers by saying 'observe,' but by giving 
them the power and the means for this observation, 
and these means are procured through education of 
the senses. Once we have aroused such activity, 
auto-education is assured, for refined, well-trained 
senses lead us to a closer observation of the environ- 
ment, and this, with its infinite variety, attracts 

the attention and continues the psychosensory educa- 
tion. "^^ 

Since our experiment includes a few tests on forms, 
it will be of interest to cite her opinion on this matter 



1^ Montessori, M., The Montessori Method, p. 228. 

13 



14 VISUAL SENSE TRAINING IN CHILDREN 

also. She says: ^'He [the child] will, however, see the 
plane geometric forms perfectly represented in the 
windows and doors, and in the faces of many solid 
objects in use at home. Thus the knowledge of the 
forms given him in plane geometric insets will be for 
him a species of magic key, opening the external world, 
and making him feel that he knows its secrets. "^^ 

Montessori does not make clear how many doors of 
the external world this magic key opens, nor how wide, 
nor just in what way they are opened. If it is true 
that well trained senses will invariably lead children 
to closer observation, it will probably mean great 
changes in the daily program of the elementary schools. 
It is but just that educational reforms, discoveries, 
or any new movements should be recognized and 
promoted, once they are found to be worthy. On 
the other hand, if they are not confirmed by properly 
controlled tests, students of education owe it to the 
public to expose their fallacy. This explains the pur- 
pose of using sense training in our experiment. 

Subjects 

When the work was started in October, 1913, twenty- 
two children took the preliminary test, and eleven of 
these were retained for the training. Experiments 
were conducted only on the days when there was 
school. These twenty-two children represented ap- 
proximately four grades of mentality, according to 
the teachers' opinions and the Binet tests taken in 
two successive years, 1911 and 1912. It was thought 
that possibly bright children might be benefited more 
than dull ones by a special training and thus would 



1-^ Montessori, M., Ihid., p. 239. 



NEW EXPERIMENTAL DATA 



15 



show a larger amount of transfer, so pupils of four 
different grades of mentality (excellent, good, average 
and poor) were chosen to test this possibility. Un- 
fortunately, the two lower grades (average and poor) 
were unable to continue in the experiment to the end 
because the experimental work was thought to inter- 
fere with their school work. Those who were left, 
therefore, rank above the average pupils of their age. 

TABLE 1 

Number of Subjects, their Age in Jan., 1914, their School Grades, the 

Teachers^ Estimate of their School Work, and their Mental Growth 

from 1911 to 1912 according to the Binet Tests^^ 

Trained Group 



Subjects 


Age in 


Grade in 


Teachers' 


Mental growth 




Jan., 1914 


1914 


estimate 


1911-1912 


I 


9.1 


4B 


Excellent 


1.2 


II 


9.4 


3B 


Good 




III 


11.1 


4B 




.8 


IV 


10.0 


3 A 




1.6 


V 


12.7 


5B 




1.4 


VI 


9.3 


3 A 




1.0 


VII 


11.3 


4 A 




.4 


Average 


10.4 


I 1.07 



Untrained Group 



VIII 


9.5 


4B 


Excellent 


.6 


IX 


9.9 


4A 


Good 


1.2 


X 


10.3 


3 A 


u 


1.0 


XI 


9.4 


4 A 


f( 


1.4 


XII 


11.3 


3 A 


n 


.4 


XIII 


9.4 


4B 


(t 


1.2 


Average 


9.97 




.97 



On account of the dropping out of the less gifted 
children (four out of the trained group and five out 

16 After C. S. Berry, University of Michigan. Unpublished study. 



16 VISUAL SENSE TRAINING IN CHILDREN 

of the untrained group) the balance of these two groups 
is shghtly in favor of the trained group, especially in 
age and rate of mental growth. The difference is, 
however, not large enough to make the two groups 
non-comparable. 

The Trained Function 

The trained function was the discrimination of 
different lengths of vertical lines drawn on cards. 
There were eleven of these cards, each 3 x 63^ inches. 
On each card only one line was drawn, always in the 
center and parallel to the short side. The longest 
line, on the card a, was 1% inches, M^o of an inch longer 
than the next line on card h. The line on card h was 
V^o of an inch longer than the line on card c, and so on 
to card k, which had a line of 13^^ inches. All lines 
were drawn of a uniform width of .2 mm. 

Figure 1 shows the apparatus used in training. The 
table A-B, 36 inches long, 24 inches wide and 25 inches 
high, was enclosed during the experiment by a square 
topped canopy as large as the table itself. This 
canopy was made 2J^ feet above the table, and sup- 
ported by a light wooden framework nailed to the 
edges of the table. In order to get the photograph, 
the framework and canopy were both removed. The 
subject sat in chair C at the end of the table and the 
operator in chair D at the side of the table to his left. 
Two cards were shown to the subject in succession, and 
the subject gave his judgment in terms of the second 
card shown saying ^ longer'' or ^^ shorter" (than the 
line on the first card). The first card, 1 in Figure 1, 
was exposed to the subject for three seconds, the opera- 
tor counting to himself 1-2-3, and then by a pull on 
the string (6), card 1 was pulled out of sight of the 



NEW EXPERIMENTAL DATA 



17 




Figure 1 



AB Table for experiment 

C Chair of subject 

D Chair of operator 

1 First card shown 

2 Second card shown 

4 Cover for card last shown 

5 Cattell FaU. 



6 String that pulls card 1 out of 

sight as cover 4 comes down^ 
thus showing card 2 

7 Lip-key 

8 Bergstrom Chronoscope 

10 Electric commutator 

11 Paper for record 

12 String to let fall cover 4 



18 VISUAL SENSE TRAINING IN CHILDREN 




Figure 2 



NEW EXPERIMENTAL DATA 19 

subject and card 2 appeared (see Figure 2). It will 
be noticed that card 2, now in view, was hidden behind 
the falling plate (4) of the Cattell Fall (5) while card 
1 was first shown. The falling of the plate (4) showed 
card 2 and, at the same time, pulled card 1 out of 
sight by means of a string (6) . While looking at these 
cards, the subject took hold of the lip-key (7) with his 
teeth. The lip-key was connected with the Cattell 
Fall (5) and the Bergstrom Chronoscope (8) with 
electric wires. As soon as the plate (4) came down, 
that is, as soon as the second card was shown, the 
chronoscope was automatically set going, and was 
stopped again whenever the subject released the lip- 
key in giving his judgment. Thus, the time spent by 
the subject in judging whether the second line was 
longer or shorter than the first was recorded by the 
chronoscope. To be sure that a uniform amount of 
light was thrown upon the cards, two tungsten lights, 
40 watts each, were hung inside the canopy, six inches 
from the top and eight inches from the end of the table 
where the subject sat. A large cardboard, tied close to 
the lights, kept the lights from shining into the eyes 
of the subject. The light from outside was entirely ex- 
cluded. The lip-key was always placed six inches from 
the edge of the table and the Cattell Fall two feet from 
this. 

The difference between the two lines shown for 
judgment was invariably M^o of an inch. Each day 
a subject made twenty judgments, there being ten 
cases where the second line was shorter and ten cases 
where the second line was longer. The order of the 
different pairs to be judged was changed every day 
by the shuffling of a set of slips on which the different 
pairs were written. The following is a sample training 
record. 



20 



VISUAL SENSE TRAINING IN CHILDREN 



TABLE 2 

Sample of a Record During the Training 

Feb. 4, 8:30 A. M., Subject I 



1. Card e compared with card d 


1230 sigmas Judgment wrong 


2. 


" h 


( 


" g 


1270 


ti 


' right 


3. 


' c 


I 


' - d 


720 


11 


<< a 


4. 


' g 


i 


U f 


930 


a 


11 << 


5. 


" b 


I 


' " c 


635 


11 


(i a 


6. 


' g 


i 


u ^ 


2000 


a 


' ' wrong 


7. 


' i 


i 


U J^ 


910 


a 


right 


8. 


' f 


i 


" g 


1280 


u 


H ii 


9. 


' d 


I 


I U g 


665 


ii 


ii ii 


10. 


' i 


I 


" j 


1200 


a 


ii a 


11. 


' f 


i 


( U g 


1000 


(( 


a ii 


12. 


' k 


i 


" j 


870 


(I 


ii a 


13. 


' d 


i 


i a ^ 


1000 


(I 


a a 


14. 


' j 


I 


u ^ 


1300 


li 


li a 


15. 


' j 


I 


i li ^ 


945 


a 


i 11 


16. 


' b 


I 


' " a 


570 


u 


' wrong 


17. 


' h 


I 


( u 1 


840 


11 


right 


18. 


' 


i 


' " b 


1370 


(I 


I ii 


19. 


' a 


i 


' " b 


770 


ii 


i a 


20. " e " " " f 


1170 


a 


I ii 


Total 


20675 


11 < 


' 3 wrong 


Net 


1034 


11 


" 17 right 


Average time for wrong judgments 


1267 


11 




U U j.-gj^(. 


993 


(I 





After each judgment, the subject was immediately 
told whether he was right or wrong. This was done 
to show him where his mistakes were, that he might 
make correction. 

Results of Training 

Table 3 and Figure 3 give the results of the trained 
group. Between February 26 and March 19 the 
work was discontinued on account of a misunderstand- 
ing of the nature of the experiment by some of the 
parents whose children acted as subjects. Spring 
vacation, April 4 to 14, was the cause of another dis- 
continuation. Counting out these periods of dis- 



NEW EXPERIMENTAL DATA 21 

continuations and week-ends when there was no school, 
together with a few hoUdays, there were given alto- 
gether forty-eight trainings, covering a space of fourteen 
weeks. 

If columns 3 and 6 in Table 3 and curves A and B 
in Figure 3 are compared, it will be noticed that, while 
the number of wrong judgments decreased from day to 
day, there was, correspondingly, an increased reaction 
time (time used by the subjects, when the line on the 
second card was shown, to judge whether that was 
longer or shorter than the first). In other words, the 
accuracy in judging vertical lines ranging from 13^ to 
1% inches with a constant difference of ^/3o of an inch 
seems to depend upon the amount of time used for 
each judgment. This increased time was rather unex- 
pected, because in past experiments, in memorizing 
poetry, or in reasoning out puzzles, training had 
resulted in a decrease of time. This temporal difference 
suggests that sensory and higher mental improvements 
are brought about in different ways. It may be that 
while higher mental improvements can be attained by 
many short-cut methods, there is only one way for 
sensory improvement, that is, by a better adaptation 
of the sense organ, which means taking more time. 

If columns 4 and 5 and curves C and D are com- 
pared, it will be noticed that in most cases more time 
was used on the wrong than on the right judgments. 
This means that, when the subjects were confronted 
with difficult cases to judge, they usually made use of 
more time to resolve the difficulty. However, there 
were cases when they could not judge rightly in spite 
of the increased time used, hence the average reaction 
time for wrong judgments is considerably higher than 
that of the right judgments. When subjects, after 



:MiiiN:Mi 


'^TV 


^ 


- 


4#^ 


p-i'il" 


B 




rfi+ffl 


I 


m V 


-■■^ 




SB'Ei 


: 


■ 








w'mwww^ m ##» 


:::::: 


^w 








:: ::::: 




li'lll 1 




m 




:iTS53t 






i 


;!'^ 


TO 

a:4 


mt3s:5T3k 


pail 


c3tlt:::: 
a: ":;t + : : 

;:|:33: 


: 




:■■: 


i : 


■""^ffltnf ^* 


: 




;:i:::;:;ffil-|-| 


:::::::;:::::: 


i 


; 






::il:M:;i::::;::M;;l 




^B 




I : :: i i ^^^JS 


H 1 1 1 ; 1 


E:::: :::: :::: ::: 


H 






: :: : :: 


:f--Tttt 




fftt: :::: :::: i:: : :::: 


ippi 


TTTTT ::: 




:; ::: :::: ::t: ^ ^ 5:: 


1 

:::::::e: 


::li: :::: ::: :::: it ;: 


3^3il5 

BTTfl 




iiiiiiiliiii-i!::::::::::: 

:::: :::::::::::£:::::::; ::i 
: :: ::::::::::!:;: :::! 

::: :: ::: ::: 1 v-i ::::::::: :: 

iiiiiiiiiiF 


1 


.lip. 

m 
H 

m 
pi 


pi 
irtt 


i 

Tt 


3 


5 

m33 
tmi: 




3?5pS 
g^3S« 


iSi:::: 

tttr3::i 

i 

T23t3t 


33t t 

1 




; ::.:: + ::::: : : ± : fr> s: 

::::: : : :: :-+r Tt|+-ft1- ii 




Tt3 


■^(f3f?WfS 

lii 

:: tt:; 


1 

J 


1 

4: 


:■: f 

1 ! 

1 


■ 


:«■:§ 

1 

■.■.&::tt:::: 

imtiilp 

I u33u: Im 

j..^i.33ii 
33:,,L 


1 


::ii i 
::!i: 






i;::ii 





:: 3; 

: 

Iff 




i::: iiiilllMi 




::::: : :::::::::::£:: 


M 


■ 


ki fei^ 




:::::::: 3: :::: : 








1 


ffi 




^:^fif 


i 


1 


^ 


W Tp: :f||j; : : : 






m 





o a 
o 



CO 



CO 



O 

Q 






H r o o o 

^ S ^ s a s 



o 
O 



bC i^ C! -tf 

bC^l .... 
o o 

-'^ 0) O !D 



o o 



t+-| .^ .-H ._ 
Q -(J -t^ >J 

fH C C C 

q; o o o 
-^ -^ -^ -^ 

g O d o 
^ ^ o3 oJ 

ri O O fU 
H tH fi in 

O (D O O 

faX) bC bC bC 

o3 c3 o3 c3 

^ ;-( ^H ;-i 

a; o <u o 

> > > > 

53 c3 o3 cj 

O O d QJ 
-*^ -fj -f^ -^J 

^^^^ 

-^ ;3 :3 3 
OOOq 



aj (D ti a 

tD 8 O Ti 



0* 00000000000 «<»&: 

«5 go 0000 00000 

Kt< HrHrH.rHH-HHH-lij 



<J3 110 ^ to C\J H 



TABLE 3 

Average Reaction Time of Seven Subjects, Twenty Judgments Daily; 

Average Reaction Time for the Right and Wrong Judgments; and the 

Average Number of Wrong Judgments. Time in Sigmas 









Average re- 


Average re- 


Average re- 




No. of 






action time. 


action time, 


action time, 


Average No. 


train 


Date 


20 judg- 


wrong judg- 


right judg- 


of wrong 


ing 






ments alto- 
gether 


ments 


ments 


judgments 


1 


Jan 


7 


1014 


1104 


946 


8.50 


2 


a 


8 


951 


983 


950 


7.00 


3 


a 


9 


1212 


1339 


1170 


6.86 


4 


a 


12 


1198 


1194 


1202 


6.29 


5 


11 


13 


1434 


1517 


1343 


7.67 


6 


i( 


14 


1371 


1373 


1375 


5.57 


7 


u 


15 


991 


1005 


991 


6.25 


8 


a 


16 


1172 


1328 


1103 


5.86 


9 


a 


19 


1070 


1186 


1013 


5.50 


10 


a 


20 


890 


1040 


805 


4.50 


11 


11 


21 


963 


1047 


980 


6.00 


12 


a 


22 


813 


803 


821 


5.50 


13 


u 


23 


1003 


1090 


972 


5.67 


14 


u 


27 


1219 


1177 


1219 


5.57 


15 


u 


28 


1236 


1409 


1191 


4.14 


16 


u 


29 


1055 


988 


1072 


7.00 


17 


u 


30 


1384 


1460 


1344 


5.75 


18 


Feb. 


3 


1222 


1326 


1168 


5.57 


19 


(( 


4 


1102 


1277 


1062 


6.17 


20 


ii 


5 


1238 


1364 


1184 


6.14 


21 


u 


6 


1361 


1684 


1362 


6.33 


22 


ii 


9 


1451 


1618 


14^3 


3.14 


23 


a 


10 


1553 


1624 


1387 


4.86 


24 


ii 


11 


1606 


1936 


1487 


4.43 


25 


ii 


12 


1672 


1581 


1684 


4.57 


26 


ii 


13 


1308 


1270 


1285 


4.43 


27 


ii 


16 


1636 


1690 


1637' 


4.29 


28 


ii 


17 


1612 


1656 


1534 


4.14 


29 


ii 


18 


1471 


1371 


1436 


3.71 


30 


ii 


19 


1506 


1830 


1485 


4.00 


31 


<i 


20 


1627 


1845 


1554 


3.71 


32 


a 


24 


1347 


1480 


1285 


4.33 


33 


a 


25 


1314 


1642 


1277 


3.60 


34 


Mar 


19 


1576 


1624 


1530 


3.50 


35 


a 


20 


1622 


1804 


1565 


3.00 


36 


ii 


23 


1389 


1515 


1349 


5.00 


37 


li 


24 


1486 


1842 


1392 


3.83 


38 


ii 


25 


1606 


1661 


1447 


5.00 


39 


n 


26 


1509 


1812 


1449 


3.17 


40 


ii 


27 


1449 


1868 


1256 


4.20 


41 


ii 


30 


1331 


1703 


1255 


3.57 


42 


ii 


31 


1369 


1491 


1335 


4.43 


43 


Apr. 


1 


1374 


1500 


1291 


5.00 


44 


ii 


2 


1163 


1228 


1116 


5.33 


45 


ii 


3 


1020 


993 


1017 


5.17 


46 


a 


14 


1257 


1433 


1230 


4.83 


47 


a 


15 


1212 


1224 


1204 


4.00 


48 


a 


16 


1332 


1507 


1310 


4.33 


Total 






62697 


68342 


60503 


241.41 


Aver. 






1306 


1424 


1260 


5.03 



24 



VISUAL SENSE TRAINING IN CHILDREN 



giving a long reaction time of three or four seconds, 
were asked why it took them so long to give that 
judgment, they usually answered: ^'I wanted to have 
a good look at it [the second card]"; '^I can tell better 
if I look at it longer"; or ''I know that one is wrong, 
because I did not see it long enough." These answers 
also indicate that long reaction times were spent for 
purposes of visual adjustment or adaptation. 

Table .4 and Figure 4 show the same thing as Table 
3 and Figure 3, only in an abridged way. Instead of 
the average daily training record, the average records 
of every five training days are taken. These charts 
show more clearly how decrease of wrong judgments is 
accompanied by increase of reaction time. 

TABLE 4 

Average Reaction Time and Number of Wrong Judgments in every Five 
Days, Derived from Table 3 











Aver, re- 


Aver, re- 










Aver, re- 


action 


action 


Aver. 








action 






number 


No. of 






time of 


time of 


time of 


of wrong 


Trainings 


■ 


Date 


100 judg- 
ments 


wrong 
judg- 
ments 


right 
judg- 
ments 


judg- 
ments 


1 to 6 


Jan. 


7 14 


1162 


1228 


1122 


7.26 


6 '' 11 


li 


14-21 


1099 


1186 


1058 


5.54 


11 " 16 


u 


21-29 


1047 


1105 


1037 


5.38 


16 " 21 


(I 


29 Feb. 6 


1200 


1283 


1166 


6.13 


21 " 26 


Feb. 


6-13 


1529 


1689 


1471 


4.67 


26 " 31 


a 


13 20 


1507 


1564 


1476 


4.12 


31 " 36 


iC 


20 Mar. 23 


1497 


1679 


1442 


3.63 


36 " 41 


Mar 


23 30 


1488 


1740 


1379 


4.24 


41 " 46 


a 


30 Apr. 14 


1252 


1383 


1203 


4.70 


46 " 49 


Apr. 


14 17 


1267 


1388 


1248 


4.39 



The curves show four phases or periods. From the 
first to the fourteenth training the subjects found it 
possible to reduce wrong judgments and also the re- 



NEW EXPERIMENTAL DATA 25 

action time — fast improvement at the beginning, fol- 
lowing the general law of learning; from the fourteenth 
to the thirty-fourth training the subjects discovered 
that, in order to reduce further the number of wrong 
judgments, it was necessary to lengthen their reaction 
time; and from the thirty-fourth training to the forty- 
sixth the reaction times have decreased conjointly 
with an increase of the number of wrong judgments. 
This third period was a time of discouragement. 
Some of the children were withdrawn on the ground 
that they were not well up with the class in their studies. 
After a delay of three weeks a readjustment was made 
and the experiment continued with seven subjects. 
That these subjects did not do their best work is 
probable from the increased number of wrong judg- 
ments and the decreased reaction time. Spring vaca- 
tion from April 4 to 14 caused another interruption 
in the experiment. The last period, from the 14th 
to the 17th of April, was covered with the under- 
standing by the subjects that these trainings would 
be the last ones. The decrease of the number of 
wrong judgments and the increase of reaction time is 
very noticeable. 

In the curves the reader will find places where 
increased reaction times do not correspond to de- 
crease of wrong judgments. This can be explained 
by the fact that the reactions of the different subjects 
were not the same; some of them took two or three 
times as long as did others to give a judgment. The 
absence of a subject whose reaction time was longer 
than the others would have brought the curve of 
averages lower than normal while the absence of a 
subject whose reaction time was shorter than the 
others would have made the curve run higher than 



26 VISUAL SENSE TRAINING IN CHILDREN 

normal. The same individual differences were shown 
in the number of wrong judgments. Some subjects 
have four or five times as many wrong judgments as 
do others. The absences caused some irregularity. 
As a whole, it is shown clearly that decrease of wrong 
judgment is accompanied by increase of reaction time. 

Summary of the Training Period 

1. With seven subjects, averaging 403^^ trainings 
each, and covering a period of over three months, the 
wrong judgments of vertical lines that ranged between 
1% and 13/3 inches by a constant difference of %o of 
an inch, decreased 40.01 per cent, accompanied by an 
increased reaction time of 14.70 per cent. 

2. The decrease of wrong judgments seems to have 
been brought about by the increased reaction time, 
(1) because the decrease in number of wrong judg- 
ments went hand in hand with a longer reaction time; 
and (2) because, according to the statements of the 
subjects, a longer reaction time was favorable to 
better visual adaptation. 

3. Visual discrimination in children seems to improve 
very slowly. 

The Tested Functions 

The functions tested were three — the discrimination 
of pitch, the discrimination of shades of color, and the 
discrimination of size. These functions were tested 
both before and after the training with line-lengths. 
For comparison, the results of the preliminary test 
taken before training, and the final test taken after 
training, are both treated here. 

The experiment started with eleven subjects in each 
of the trained and the untrained groups. Only seven 






CO 






o 

5^ 






cc X o -o X :c t^ CO 
T^ w c;^ , c^ (M 



o 

1) 



bC -If 

-, I- O 13 



cocit^Occt^orci 

COOt^OcCCCOCO 



CO (N --H C^ ""^i (N 05 



c 
.2 cc 

g © ^ 



03 

(MOOO^OCO^ 
l>rOCiC5COTti(MC^ 

T— I .— I T— I ,— ( 1— I rH C5 



-" 73 -k^ 

e s i/j 05 

H .^ ^ be 






be «*- 



© 

a 



oococroot^x 

OOCOOOCOOCi 



OiOt^OCOC^(NX 



-^ ^c 



bC 



<M Ci CO ,— , lO LO C5 ■<* 
'"^ '—< T- i 1— I i-H GO 



© I CO 
XJ bC ^ 

'-' b£ V- 
©CO 



CC 



w 



COOOcOCDOOt-h 
COOOOOOCDCO 

Ot>-C5t>-CCt^TtlX 



p8Aia09J 



cor^ciioioxeocoo 



(^oafqns 






28 VISUAL SENSE TRAINING IN CHILDREN 

subjects in the trained group completed the training 
and only six of the untrained group were ready to take 
the final test. In the following tables the difference 
between the trained and the untrained groups, that is, 
the average amount of improvement of the seven 
trained subjects, minus the average amount of improve- 
ment of the six untrained subjects, is considered im- 
provement due to training. Owing to the extended 
period the experiment covered, it was thought that 
the change of season from winter to spring, and the 
variation in the daily study program of the subjects 
might affect the success of the test. For this reason, 
as has been explained in the introduction, a control 
group of three was selected to take the test for the 
first time when the other two groups were taking their 
final test. It was thought that, if these changed 
conditions were more favorable, the control group 
would be more successful than the two other groups 
with their preliminary, and if the changed conditions 
were less favorable, the control group would be less 
successful. The three subjects forming the control 
group were all excellent pupils, ahead in their studies, 
and therefore could afford the time to take the test. 
Since they were the only available ones at the time, 
they were taken, notwithstanding their superiority. 

1 . Discrimination of Pitch 

The preliminary part ot this test was given on Octo- 
ber 15, 16 and 17, 1913, the final part on April 17, 20 
and 21, 1914, i. e., after an interval of five months. A 
pair of Koenig tuning forks, each of which possessed a 
vibration rate of 256 a second, was used. In order to 
vary the pitches by small steps a brass rider was made 
for one of the tuning forks, so as to be set at any place 



NEW EXPERIMENTAL DATA 



29 



on one arm of the fork by a set screw. As the rider 
moved httle by Uttle towards the resonance box the 
two tuning forks approached nearer and nearer in 
pitch; as it moved away from the resonance box the 
difference of the two tuning forks grew larger. A metric 
scale was used to set the rider, which was moved 5 
millimeters at a time. The beats that the two tuning 
forks produced per minute, as the rider was moved 
from the end of the tuning fork toward the resonance 
box, were as shown in Table 6. 

The 840, 655 and 575 beats were counted from tone- 
recorder records and the rest of them were counted 
accurately by a stop-watch. 

TABLE 6 

Results from Testing the Forks Used for Pitch Discrimination 





Position of the 


Rider 




Beats Per Minute 


1 


mm. from end of the tuning fork 


840 beats 


2 


5 '^ 






a 


11 


11 


665 " 


3 


10 " 






a 


11 


11 


575 '' 


4 


15 '' 






li 


11 


it 


' 480 " 


5 


20 * 






u 


11 


il 


420 '' 


6 


25 ' 






n 


11 


li 


385 " 


7 


30 ' 






u 


li 


il 


360 " 


8 


35 ' 






n 


li 


li 


335 '' 


9 


40 ' 






11 


11 


il 


305 " 


10 


45 ' 






li 


il 


it 


275 " 


11 


50 ' 






u 


il 


li 


250 '' 


12 


55 ' 






u 


11 


it 


215 " 


13 


60 ' 






li 


il 


il 


185 " 


14 


65 ' 






il 


li 


It 


155 " 


15 


70 ' 






ii 


il 


it 


138 " 


16 


75 ' 






li 


li 


It 


115 " 


17 


80 ' 






11 


11 


It 


90 '' 


18 


85 ' 






li 


il 


It 


78 " 


19 


90 ' 






li 


11 


it 


62 " 


20 


95 ' 






li 


11 


11 


50 " 


21 


100 ' 






It 


11 


11 


40 " 


22 


105 ' 






11 


il 


11 


30 '' 


23 


110 ' 






11 


11 


il 


22 " 


24 


115 ' 






il 


li 


11 


15 '' 



30 VISUAL SENSE TRAINING IN CHILDREN 

In the actual tests of discrimination the rider was 
moved 24 times towards the resonance box from the 
end of the tuning fork and 24 times in the opposite 
direction, which brought it back again to the end of 
the fork. Five judgments were given for each move 
of the rider, making altogether 240 judgments. 

To finish the 240 judgments three sittings were 
necessary. On the first day the subjects made 60 
judgments, beginning with the larger differences 
from 1 to 13, Table 6; on the second day the subjects 
made another 60 judgments, beginning with difference 
13 and ending with difference 24; and on the last day 
the process was reversed, — this time beginning with 
the smaller differences of the tuning forks and working 
towards larger differences, from 24 backwards to 1. 
The first two sittings took about twelve minutes each, 
the last sitting about twenty minutes. During the 
experiment the subjects sat at an average distance 
of ten feet from the tuning forks. On a desk in front 
of each subject was a pencil and a typewritten sheet 
on which was printed ''A12345B12345C12345,'' 
etc., ending with the letter X. A, B, C, etc., are indi- 
cated in Table 6 by column one, 1, 2, 3, etc., 1 corres- 
ponding to A, 2 to B, and so on. The numerals after 
each letter indicated the places under which the judg- 
ments were to be written. All subjects were told to 
record their judgments with reference to the second fork 
struck; that is, if this sounded lower than the first 
fork, they were to write under the numeral an I.; 
if it sounded higher, they were to write an H. To be 
sure that every subject knew what to do, a trial sheet 
was given to each on the first day of the preliminary 
test. The subjects were seated in alternate seats 
with their backs towards the tuning forks. Though 



NEW EXPERIMENTAL DATA 31 

the lower fork was sounded last as often as was the 
higher, the order in which they followed each other 
was irregular. Thus the subjects were prevented 
from copying from one another, from anticipating 
which was the low-toned fork and from forming any 
association with the order in which the two forks were 
struck. 

The forks were hung near the center of the room with 
the tines down, as is shown in Figure 5. Both reson- 
ance boxes in which the forks were set, were held by 
string loops about their ends. These four string loops 
were attached to a wooden bar which was itself hung 
from the ceiling. In this way, as the bar turned, the 
tuning forks exchanged places and hence there was 
no chance of the subjects associating lower or higher 
pitches with direction or distance. The forks were 
struck by a solid rubber-ball hammer; about three 
seconds after the first fork was struck, it was stopped 
with the hand and the second tuning fork was struck. 
The subjects immediately wrote down their judgments, 
L or H. While they were doing this, the operator 
made his preparation for the next trial, and then an- 
nounced to the subjects under which letter and numeral 
their judgment should be written down. In front of 
the operator was a sheet of paper to guide him regard- 
ing the places of the rider and the order of the high or 
low pitches throughout the test. By constant an- 
nouncement of the letters and numerals the subjects 
knew whether they were writing down their judgments 
at the proper places. These arrangements were fol- 
lowed in both the preliminary and the final tests. 

The results of the test are shown in Tables 7A, 7B 
and 7C. On account of the absence of subject XIII, 
there were only five left in the untrained group. 



32 



VISUAL SENSE TRAINING IN CHILDREN 




Figure 5 



NEAV EXPERIMENTAL DATA 33 

The author has found that the auditoiy sense in 
children fatigues easil3^ The first two sittings took 
about 12 minutes each, and the last sitting took about 
18 minutes, in both the preHminary and final tests. 
It will be noticed from Table 7A that, as the pitch 
of the two tuning forks decreased in difference, no 
subject escaped from making wrong judgments. This, 
not only because towards the end of the test the dif- 
ferences in pitch became smaller, but also because the 
subjects were getting fatigued. That this was the 
fact was brought out by the record of the second 
sitting. When the differences of the forks continued 
to decrease from the first, some of the subjects started 
in with no misjudgments, although mid judgments 
had already begun towards the last of the first sitting. 
Some of the subjects doubtless would not have made 
any wrong judgments, had it not been for fatigue. 
We can infer this from the fact that, as the process 
was reversed in the third sitting, subjects I, IV, XIV 
and XV made no wrong judgments. It is even prob- 
able that some of them can distinguish differences of 
less than 15 beats a minute, .4 vibration. Fatigue, in 
the third sitting, though it did not interfere with these 
subjects, was a handicap for the rest. These other 
subjects continued their misjudgments beyond the 
point where their judgments were still right in the 
first two sittings. This raising of the threshold as 
the difference of the forks became larger and larger 
was doubtless due to fatigue. 

In Table 7A it will be seen that both trained and 
untrained groups have lowered their thresholds — the 
place where the difference of the tuning forks was just 
distinguishable. However, the trained group gained 
33.43 per cent more than the untrained as the tuning 



34 



VISUAL SENSE TRAINING IN CHILDREN 



TABLE 7 

Point at ivhich Subjects began to Make Wrong Judgments, as Indi- 
cated by the Number of Beats per Minutes 



Trained GrouD 





Preliminary Test 


Final Test 


Improvement 


Subjects 


Decreas- 


Tncreas- 


Decreas- 


Increas- 


Decreas- 


Increas- 




ing 


.ing 


ing 


ing 


ing 


mg 


I 


180 





78 





102 





II 


575 


575 


78 


335 


497 


240 


III 


840 


840 


840 


840 








IV 


360 





62 


420 


298 


—420 


V 


60 


480 


155 


250 


—95 


230 


VI 


385 


385 


90 


50 


295 


335 


VIl 


840 


385 


385 


360 


455 


25 


Total 


3240 


2665 


1688 


2255 


1552 


410 


Per cent 










47.90 


15.38 


Average 


463 


381 


241 


322 






Untrained Group 


VIII 


665 


840 


575 


585 


90 


225 


IX 


840 


840 


840 


840 








X 


15 


785 


335 


305 


—320 


480 


IX 


840 


840 


305 


360 


535 


•480 


XII 


335 


385 


250 


250 


85 


135 


Total 


2695 


3690 


2305 


2340 


390 


1350 


Per cent 










14.47 


, 36.58 


Average 


539 


738 


461 


468 






Per cent of Transfer 






33.43 


—21.20 


Control Group 


XIV 






22 









XV 






250 









XVI 






115 


50 






Total 






387 


50 






Average 






129 


17 







NEW EXPERIMENTAL DATA 



35 



TABLE 7 
B. Number of Wrong Jvdgments Made by Subjects 

Trained Group 





Preliminary Test 


Final Test 


Improvement 






High 




High 




High 




Low fork 


fork 


Low fork 


fork 


Low fork 


fork 


Subjects 


struck 


struck 


struck 


struck 


struck 


struck 




last 


last 


last 


last 


last 


last 


I 


6 


4 


3 


2 


3 


2 


II 


32 


26 


15 


3 


17 


23 


III 


63 


66 


54 


59 


9 


7 


IV 


7 


4 


9 


18 


—2 


—14 


V 


2 


2 


1 


8 


1 


-6 


VI 


8 


10 


6 


10 


2 





VII 


44 


22 


21 


40 


23 


—18 


Total 


162 


134 


109 


140 


53 


-6 


Per cent 










32.72 


-4.48 


Average 


23 


19 


16 


20 










Untrained Group 






VIII 


38 


35 


39 


14 


— 1 


21 


IX 


91 


17 


35 


42 


56 


—25 


X 


11 


12 


24 


13 


- 13 


—1 


XI 


60 


40 


30 


29 


30 


11 


XII 


6 


13 


8 


17 


—2 


-4 


Total 


206 


117 


136 


115 


70 


2 


Per cent 










33.98 


1.71 


Average 


41 


23 


27 


23 






Per cent 


of Transfer 








-1.26 


-6.19 


Control Group 


XIV 






5 


3 






XV 






4 


5 






XVI 






8 


3 






Total 






17 


11 






Average 






6 


4 







36 



VISUAL SENSE TRAINING IN CHILDREN 



TABLE 7 

C Total Percentage of Successes Made by the Subjects, 240 Trials Taken as 

the Basis 

Trained Group 



Subjects 



Preliminary Test 
1 2 



Final Test 
3 4 



Improvement 
5 6 



I 


97.50 


98.33 


98.75 


99.17 


1.25 


.84 


II 


86.67 


89.17 


93.75 


98.75 


7.08 


9.58 


III 


73.75 


72.50 


77.50 


75.42 


3.75 


2.92 


IV 


97.08 


98.33 


96.25 


92.50 


— .83 


—5.83 


V 


99.17 


99.17 


99.58 


96.67 


.41 


—2.50 


VI 


96.67 


95.83 


97.50 


95.83 


.83 





VII 


81.67 


90.83 


91.25 


83.33 


9.58 


—7.50 



Total 
Average 



632.51 644.16 654.58 641.67 



22.07 —2.49 
3.15 —.36 



Untrained Group 



VIII 


84.17 


85.42 


83.75 


94.17 


— .42 


8.75 


IX 


62.08 


92.92 


85.42 


92.50 


23.34 


—10.42 


X 


95.42 


95.00 


90.00 


94.58 


-5.42 


-.42 


XI 


75.00 


83.33 


87.50 


87.92 


12.50 


4.59 


XII 


97.50 


94.58 


96.67 


92.92 


— .83 


—1.66 



Total 


414. 


17 


451, 


,25 


443, 


,34 


452, 


,09 


29. 


17 


.84 


Average 


















5. 


83 


.17 


Transfer 


















—2. 


68 


— .53 



Columns 1, 3 and 5 indicate percentage of success when the low- 
tuning fork was struck last. 

Columns 2, 4 and 6 indicate percentage of success when the high 
tuning fork was struck last. 



forks decreased in difference and showed a compar- 
ative loss of 21.20 per cent as they increased in dif- 
ference. So far as the lowering of the threshold is 
concerned, the result shows a greater improvement in 
the trained group. This finding seems to be in accord 
with a previous experiment performed by Bennett, 



NEW EXPERIMENTAL DATA 37 

who trained sixteen children of eleven years of age ''in 
discriminating different saturations of blue" and tested 
them in their ''other sense powers in discriminating 
different mixtures of (1) red and white, (2) yellow and 
green, (3) orange and black." The training lasted 
five months with two half-hour periods each week. 
"There was also a preliminary test in distinguishing 
pitches." In this last test the Gilbert tone-tester was 
employed. "F sharp was taken as the norm, and the 
method employed, that of minimal gradations. As 
the figures (See Table 10) present it, the sharpness 
went from a range of 4.4 points at the first test — each 
point representing an eighth of the distance from F to 
F sharp, or F sharp to G — to one of 3.5 at the last 
test with the boys, or a gain of 20%; and from 5.3 
points to 4.1 points for the girls, or a gain of about 
23%." 1^ This large gain may be accounted for by the 
want of a control group of untrained subjects. In the 
present experiment the trained group made an even 
greater gain, 47.90 per cent in the upper threshold, as 
the difference in pitch decreased, and 15.38 per cent in 
the lower threshold, as the difference in pitch increased. 
But even such a large gain as this becomes practically 
insignificant when it is compared with the gain of the 
untrained group. It seems unjustifiable to conclude 
from such results that training is general. 

Another experiment of a similar nature was performed 
by Coover and Angell. "Four reagents were trained 
in discrimination of intensities of sound for 17 days 
during an interval of 57 days. Each reagent made 40 
judgments in each day's training. Before and after 
training the reagents were tested in the discrimination 
of shades of gray, each test consisting of three series. 



1^ Bennett, C. J. C, Formal Discipline, p. 62. 



38 VISUAL SENSE TRAINING IN CHILDREN 

each containing 35 judgments, delivered on 3 separate 
days."i8 Their three subjects made 4, 6, and points 
of improvement, respectively. Judging from the 
number of judgments given to the reagents, the per- 
centage of gain can not be very large. And they end 
their report by saying: ''Our conclusion from the 
experiment, therefore, is that efficiency of sensible 
discrimination acquired by training with sound stimuli 
has been transferred to the efficiency of discriminating 
brightness stimuli, and that the factors in this transfer 
are due in great part to habituation and to a more 
economic adaptation of attention, i. e., are general, 
rather than special in character. "^^ There is possible 
no direct comparison between the present experiment 
and that of Coover and Angell, who used adults as sub- 
jects, trained them in auditory, and tested them in 
visual sensitivity, whereas the writer used children, 
trained them in visual and tested them in auditory 
sensitivity. 

In reference to the number of wrong judgments 
presented in Table 7B, the decreases of the trained 
group were so small, no matter which is taken for 
the basis of calculation — the number of wrong judg- 
ments (Table 7B) or the total amount of success 
(Table 7C) — that it is doubtful whether they are 
really of importance. Mere chance might have 
caused that much difference. The control group is 
useless for purposes of comparison, because of the 
superior ability of the subjects. 



^' Coover, J. E., and Angell, F., General Practice Effect of Special 
Exercise, Am. Jour. Psych., Vol. 18., p. 331. 

19 Ibid., p. 334. 



NEW EXPERIMENTAL DATA 39 

Summary for Pitch Discrimination 

1. In auditory discrimination children show signs 
of fatigue very quickly. Probably 12 minutes is too 
long a sitting for an average child of about ten. 

2. There is no positive evidence from our experiment 
that efficiency in visual discrimination is transferred 
to efficiency in auditory discrimination. 

2. Discrimination of Shades of Color 

It seemed impossible to dye any paper with gradual 
saturations of color and keep these shades permanent, 
so shades of color in solution were used instead. Potas- 
sium bichromate, 20% H2SO4 + 20% K2Cr207, which 
gives a beautiful orange color, fitted the purpose 
very well, and test tubes of a uniform size (^.4 inch) 
were used. After they had been carefully washed 
and chemically cleaned, each tube was filled with 15 
cubic centimeters of water. Various numbers of 
drops of the potassium bichromate were put into these 
test tubes by means of a pipette. Then they were 
sealed by melting the open end, and labeled. 

This test was divided into two sittings of 17 judg- 
ments each, making altogether 34 trials. The follow- 
ing shows the order of the different comparisons during 
the two sittings. 

In giving this test the writer used the same apparatus 
and method of procedure that were employed in the 
training. Figures 6 and 7 show the general arrange- 
ment. 

Test-tube 1 (see Figure 6) was shown first for three 
seconds and then, by a pull on the string (12), the plate 
(4) in the Cattell Fall (5) was dropped, exposing test- 
tube 2 (see Figure 7) and covering test-tube 1 by 



40 



VISUAL SENSE TRAINING IN CHILDREN 




Figure 6 



NEW EXPERIMENTAL DATA 



41 




Figure 7 



42 



VISUAL SENSE TRAINING IN CHILDREN 



1. Test-tube w 


ith 11 


2. 


IH 


3. 


' 39 


4. 


' 24 


5 


' 70 


6. 


' 33 


7. 


5 


8. 


' 45 


9. 


' 2M 


10. 


' 14 


11. 


' 39 


12. 


8 


13. 


' 13^ 


14. 


' 45 


15. 


' 55 


16. 


8 


17. 


K 


18. Test-tube w 


ith 33 


19. 


' 65 


20. 


' 60 


21. 


' 11 


22. 


' 28 


23. 


' 3H 


24. 


' 20 


25. 


' 33^ 


26. 


' 24 


27. 


' 28 


28. 


' 17 


29. 


' 55 


30. 


5 


31. 


' 20 


32. 


' 21^ 


33. 


' 17 


34. 


' 14 



First Sitting 

drops of solution shown first, then test-tube with 14 drops 

" 1^ 

" 45 

" 28 

" 60 

" 28 

" 8 

" 55 

" 3^ 

" 11 

" 33 

" 11 

" 2^ 

" 39 

" 65 

" 5 



Second Sitting 

drops of soUition shown first, then test-tube with 39 

" 55 
" 70 



drops 



23 

5 

17 

2^ 
20 
24 
14 
45 

33^ 
24 

iy2 

20 
17 



NEW EXPERIMENTAL DATA 43 

bringing up plate cover 3. As in the training, the 
judgment was given in terms of the second stimulus. 
The subject would say ''darker/' meaning that he 
thought it was more saturated than the first test-tube 
shown; or ''lighter/' meaning less saturated. To get 
the reaction time, the lip-key and chronoscope were 
again used. Three tungsten lights of 40 watts each 
were arranged behind a large plate of milk glass (9) 
so that a uniformly illuminated background was given 
to the test tubes. All other lights were removed fiom 
the inside of the canopy which covered the experiment 
table. 

The result of this test is presented in Table 8. \Vhile 
the trained group shows only a slight improvement in 
right judgments, the untrained group shows an im- 
provement of 25 per cent more. This can only be 
accounted for by the increased reaction time of the 
untrained group. It confirms our finding in the train- 
ing, namely that the way to reduce the number of 
wrong judgments in sense discrimination is to lengthen 
the reaction time. It will be noticed that the loss was 
greatest in the reaction time of wiong judgments in 
the untrained group. This indicates that these sub- 
jects employed more time in judging difficult cases of 
comparison. Whenever this was done, here or in the 
training, the number of wrong judgments was always 
smaller. Subjects VIII, X, and XIII reduced their 
number of wrong judgments considerably by lengthen- 
ing their reaction time two or three fold in the final test. 
With Subject XI the lengthening of reaction time was 
not found, though her improvement was the greatest 
of all. This is because in her preliminary test she 
had a number of long reaction times due to difficulty 
in using the lip-key and these longer times have in- 
creased her average reaction time unduly. 



CO 



o 



(MCOOiOtOOiOit^iO 
OOOi'^'-HOit^OOCO 
(M (M C^ rH CO CO lO 



CO LQ Ci CO CO I o o 
00 CO <M i-H I CO o 

I I 00 

(MCOCOOOOqi-H-^fMO 
TfH CO 00 lO i O (M <M 

CO CO T— I I 1—1 I O 

I Oi 

CO 

OOOOi— IfNOrHT— 1 



CO 






CO 


Tt< 


to 






00 


-^ 


^ 


<M CO t^ (M (M 0:1 00 00 


TJH 




CM TtH 


1—1 CM 1^ CO '-C 


T— ( 


CM 




CO ir^ CO CO CO >-o 


1 






rH 


'-' 


1 




(M 




1 1 


CO 


00 


05 






10 


'^ 



cocscor^T-HoooocM 

CO 00 CO CM CO 10 ■ 

TfH I O 00 



CM 



I 10 

Oi 

t^O'^'Ot^OlOO'^ 
Tt 00 00 CO CO Tfi Oi 
t^ T-H CO CO C^l I CO I 

II ' Ic 

CO 
'^CM'^OCOCOOiCO 

I r-i CM 



Ci 



CO 



o 
o 



CM 



05 



Soo 
Is 

St- 



CO 



10 



.S CO 

0? 



CO Tt< CO 1— I >0 CO CM rH CO t^ ^ CO CO 05 rt^ O lO 

Oi CO CO t^ O ■* 00 CM O O CO CO !>• 1— I '^ 1— I CO 

t^ Tti O O C<> 00 CO 1-H CO CM t^ Oi l> l> -^ 00 CO 

1— (1— Ir- li— It— I 1— lC5 i— •CM'— i i— Ir— li— lOi t— I 



,-(i-iOO00C<ICO00 
OOt^CMiOiOCMTttTti 
lO-'tit^t^OcOOO^ 

T— i T— ( I— I 1—1 CM 00 



»OCiTti-*COThlC0>O 
OOCOOOtOr-HOOTtlCO 
-^■^OOOOi— I-— 10000 
t— I r— I ,— I rH 1— I 00 



l>OC^i-(C0O00'— • 
1— I 1— t 1— I 1— t 1— I I>- 



lO'— ICOCOOCM^OO 
t^t^C^OO'-tCMt^iO 

Oi— too-— ii— ICMOCO 
CM i— I 1— ( 1— I th C^ 05 



CMI>lr^coOO^CO 

rHi— I.— lOOCQCM-^rH 

■^'-•OGO'-tCOt^CO 
CM I— I 1—1 1— I 1— I 1— I Oi 



t^COt^CM-^tOOSt^ 
CMCOCOi— (1— lOOi— liO 
rHT-IOiOi— ICIOO'* 

CM 1—1 1— I 1— I 1— I tH 05 



t^OCMT-iCOCMOOCI 

I— < I— I i-H tH r— I !>. 



OOCOCOCOIOOC^IC^I Oi 

1>CMCOOCM05CMCO 00 

CM CO I> O 10 t^ O CO CO 

T— 11— ll— ( 1— '1— (I— 100 1—1 



CM t>. CO CO -^ CM '^ CO O 

CO "O O ^ CXD 00 00 CM CM 

CMLOCOCl'LOt^OiO -^ 

1— li— (t— ( rHi— ll— iQO 1—1 



0051>OCOrtllOCO 

1—1 •!— I 1—1 to 



Oi 



O to !> CO 00 1— I 10 C<1 to 

00 00 t^ 1— t Oi 1:^ O to !>. 

CO CO O CM O O 1—1 CM CO 

1—1 C<1 CM CM 1—1 00 1—1 



COt^t^COC^li-irhtT^ rtl 

1^ 00 t^ '^ »^ to 1— I CM to 

CO 00 CO CM CO 05 O i—i CO 

1—1 1— ( CM rH rH 00 T— ( 



tO'* CM i-il> 
OJCM CM rt^^ 
CM to to CO Tt^ 
1—1 CM "^ rH 



1> tOCM'* rH 

1— t to 1— I 00 CO 
CM CO CM O CO 
1—1 CM -^ 1—1 



lOTfH CM 1-1 '* 
CO t^ ^ CM t^ 

CM to CO 1—1 CO 
1-H CM ■* 1— I 



00 to !-< -^ 00 
1-1 CM 



1— lOCOOlOOJiOtO 
tOi— IOOC-1"*!— IC0C<J 
COOOt^CMCMOOrH 
I— I 1— ( CM OQ T— I 00 

CO 



to 

CO' 



O CO 05 Tti l> 



GO CM 



cmH 



i J-H 



•^ L> O OJ '^ 



. o S >> 



X 



X 



"^ " 2 « 

HH ^ . O t. 

><! o a; > a3 






b^< 



.S o 






2 ^ 

O '-' 









c 






fl 


a; 









P 






g 


Sb 






bCT3 






TS 


3 






3 


^^ 






• ■— • 


bC 






■*j 


rj 


03 




A 





-^ 


q3 


.bf) 


^H 





g 


'S 


^ 


g 


■+3 








T3 
13 





s 















<o 


•+^ 


+-> 


bC o3 






s 


<a 


c 


ti 





^ 


_o 


_o 


(-1 


O) 


'■+J 


v> 


^ 


fcX) 










oj 


o3 


o3 


<4-l 


;_! 





O) 





cu 


^H 


;-! 


^ 


> 


0) 


(U 


cu 


c3 


bO bfi 


X! 


1 


03 


03 


a 


c3 






3 





> 


> 


M^H<!l<ii 


CJ 








.2^0 


T-< 


oq CO 


XtH 


1—1 


1— 1 


1— t 


3 ^ 


^ 


^ 


^ 


J>2cOl>00O5 
1 


1 CM^CO TfTiO 


m 


rr 


m 


oc 


fl C 


d 


C 


C 


S £ 


g 


s s 


,3-3 


3 


3 


3 










'o'o 











00000 



NEW EXPERIMENTAL DATA 45 

The question naturally arises: Why did not the 
subjects of the trained group use more time, after 
having had the special benefit of the training? The 
answer is that the subjects of the trained group were 
growing tired of the experiment; its novelty was lost 
in the three months' training. They seemed to be 
unwilling to give the necessary time needed to visual 
adaptation, and in many cases they seemed to have 
left it to chance whether they were right or wrong in 
their judgments. On the other hand, the subjects of 
the untrained group seemed to be only too glad to 
have a change in their daily program, to come to the 
experiment room once more, especially at the begin- 
ning of the retest. In none of the tests, preliminary 
or final, were the subjects of either group told of the 
right ness or wrongness of their judgments, as were the 
members of the trained group in the course of their 
training. This only made the trained group all the 
more unconcerned at the beginning of the retest. In 
a word, interest is quite essential for success in sense 
discrimination in children, for they must be willing to 
give their time for purposes of sensory adaptation. 

Summary for Discrimination of Color 

1. This test confirms the finding in the training, 
that lengthened reaction time is the means to reduce 
the number of wrong judgments in visual discrimina- 
tion. 

2. Interest is essential for sense discrimination in 
children that they may give the time necessary for 
better visual adaptation. 



46 VISUAL SENSE TRAINING IN CHILDREN 

3. Discrimination of Size 

The tested functions included not only discrimina- 
tions of color and pitch but also discriminative 
functions more closely related to those in which train- 
ing had been given. The subjects had been trained 
in discriminating vertical lines ranging from IM to 
1% inches long with a difference of Vso of an inch. 
Before and after this training, a test was taken not 
only with the same sizes as in the training, but also with 
one set of larger sizes, ranging from 2Vio to 2% inches, 
and one set of smaller sizes, ranging from % to 1 inch. 
These different sizes were also drawn in different forms, 
namely, as circles, triangles and horizontal lines as 
well as vertical lines. The differences to be discrimi- 
nated in these various sizes were not the same; in the 
size ranging from 2^10 to 2% inches, the difference to 
be disci iminated was Vio of an inch ; for the size ranging 
from ^ to 1 inch, Vao of an inch; and from If/i to 1% 
inches, the same size in which training has been given, 
there were two sets of differences to be discriminated — 
one set, which included all the various forms, had a 
difference of Vii of an inch; the other, which included 
only the circles, triangles and horizontal lines, had a 
difference of %o of an inch. Vertical lines with a 
difference of Vso of an inch were used only for the train- 
ing and were excluded from the testing. Table 9 
gives in detail the various sizes in different forms with 
the various differences to be discriminated. 

It will be noticed that the trained function differed 
from the "a" series only in form, from the ^^A," ^^B," 
and ''C" series of the vertical lines only in size and 
differences to be discriminated, from all the '^B'^ 
series of circles, triangles and horizontal lines only in 



< 



^ 



o 

-Si 



13 





IB 




o 




-^ 




^::::::::::--"^^^^-^^ 




r^ ^ ^ 




*— « 




• ^H 




vi:;\?o xW^M usNco iJ5"^ \M\M\OT\^ 




(Mr-l,-l(M,-l,-l(M,_(,-IC^i-l.-(r-Hr-l,-l^ 




O^^^-,^^^^^^-^--- 




-tJv.v,.^--,..^^^-^------- 


K 


o o c c 


.2 




M 


C^T— 1 (Nl— 1 CQt— ( C^T— 1 ,— (I— ll— 1,— 1 




a 




o^---------^----- 




J_^ ^ ---------------- 




«*- 




faC 




_c 




'3b 




c^:: ::::::----::::::---- 




c3 




^ 


»3 




73 




Lh 




ce 




O T3 




'^ $K 


i^i - -;::::::------ i— ^ - - - 


Q to 


° S 


T— 1 


6 




^ 




o 

£! - 


Si 


t3 


0---s«^^^-^------ 


o E 


^g- ---,-^^- --^--- 


■k^ +3 




S G 


c^^^^^^^^^-^.--- 


U "2 




« S 


o- -------------- 


© o 




Jt3 w 

5^ 


CWOOLOOOl-'COOpO^ ^ ^ 


~^r-( vT-i x?l \r-( vj-l v^ v^ -vT^ v^^) xT^ vn -^.^^ --^ ~- " ^ 

r^^ i-i^ r-(~- i-f^ i-i^ --1^ r-1^ ri^ i-i~^ r-T- r-!"^ r1^ i-l-- 


S-i 




O 


^ ^ 










■31 


u 






o 




z; 






<jifQO<tjmo<i«o<P50 c3 cj c3 


w 


to CO 


a 


OJ o 


W .S- - .S 03 


o 


o — — c 


^ 


i=l- - -H ^ s 




03 ^ ^ mis — 

op "bb g o ^ cp'bb o g 










_tH- - •-- ^ o- - o .!s"S O S 




O H "* > K OHS> 



a' 



bC 



,i5 



- - .S 1=1 



'3 



48 VISUAL SENSE TRAINING IN CHILDREN 

form and differences to be discriminated, and from 
all the ''A" and '^C" series in size, form and differences 
to be discriminated. It is easily seen, with this arrange- 
ment, that the vertical line series was most closely 
related to the trained function, next came logically 
the horizontal lines, the triangles and circles, in accord- 
ance to form; with reference to size, that ranging from 
1^/^ to 1% inches was the most closely related to the 
training, next came that ranging from % to 1 inch 
and 2^10 to 2% inches; and according to the differences 
to be discriminated, %o, V20, Yis and Vio of an inch, in the 
order stated. 

There were altogether 15 series in this test, as shown 
in Table 9, making 15 sittings for each subject. These 
subjects came into the experiment room in turn for 
fifteen minutes in the morning on school days and 
made ten or twenty judgments in accordance with the 
different series. The order in which the various series 
followed each other was the same as shown in Table 9. 
The preliminary test lasted from November 4 to De- 
cember 17, 1913, the final from April 28 to May 17, 
1914. Much less time was taken during the final 
test, because of the dropping out of four subjects from 
the trained group and five from the untrained group. 
The hours of experiment for each subject were kept 
as nearly as possible the same in both tests. The 
general method and apparatus used in this test were 
the same as those used in the training. 

The results of the test are presented in Tables 10, 
11, 12, 13, and 14. Table 10 shows in detail how the 
percentages of transfer were calculated. What each 
column in the table stands for is explained in footnotes 
immediately following the table. The various amounts 
of transfer are rearranged in Table 11 so as to present 



GO 00 O 



O >0 LO 



Ci t^ CO 

1— I rH rO 



lO "^ Ci 



CO O CO 



CO t>- ro 

■^ (M t^ 



CO Ci iC 



<M CO lO 

(N Ci ^ 



00 Tf< CO 



C^J 00 CO- 
CO O CM 



lO CO 00 
CO <M. 



C^l ^ CO 
O (M C^l 



'^ 






CO CO o 
O Ci Ci 



CO !>q 00 

C^ r-H CO 



CO 



00 



CO CI 



T 



O 1^ t^ 

Tt^ CO O 



CO 



CO 



(M 00 Tf 
CO Tfi 1— I 



(M 



O "^ '^ 

O CO CO 



CM 00 i-t- 

CO Tt^ 



CO oc* 
Oi CO CO 



ot^oo 

CM CM 



CO O CO 
CO 1— I o 



'— I o o 

CO -rtl 



t^ CO --^ 

LO CO t^ 



LO CO 



rH -^ lO 

CO CO C^l 



lO lO '-< 
CI CO 



CO 



CO 



t^ GO LO 

O lO o 



TfH ^ to 

1— I t~» CO 



t^ lO C^l 

»^ CO^ 



o o o 
o o «o 



O C^l C^l 

1—1 CO t^ 



t^ GO 05 



O GOCM 
CO 1— I T-H 



CO 
CO 



CO 
CO 



CO O ^ 
CO CO 



ooo 
lO o o 



01 O CM 

i-< O-l CO 



Tfl LO 1— I 
TtH lO i-H 



Tfl lO l— ' 

-^ lO 1— •• 



&H 



Ph 



M 


1-1 CM 
CM 'st^ 


to 


CO Tt^ 


73 

3 


LO C^l 

OcO 


^ 


Oi CO 

t^ c^ 


.'s 


O CM 


"3 


CO GO 
t-~- 00 


CO 00 


^ 


C^l CO 


1-1 CM 


'C 


C^l t^ 


M 


1—1 o 


't^ 


LO CO 


Cj 


r—l CO 


*c 


^ CM 


'S 


O 1-1 


-+^ 


CM C5 


-kJ 


ot^ 


-H> 


GO CO 




1—1 l-H 


o 


1—1 1—1 


o 

i>H 


1—1 1— i 


o 

1—1 


T— 1 


o 

1— 1 


I— 1 


o 

1—1 




O 


CO 00 


tH 


O CO 




1—1 Tfl 


oT 


-^ Tt< 


02 


t^t-^ 


02 


tH LO 


rH 


O CO 


- 


«0 00 


aT 


CO CM 


o 


O CO 


.^ 


O CO 


a; 


CO 1—1 




O 00 


en 


t-^ 1—1 


_(U 


r—\ 1—1 


*r^ 


t^ 1-1 




LO LO 




CO o 




Ci OS 


CI 


OS Ci 


'^ 


O C5 




1— 1 C5 


o 


00 t^ 


S-i 

o 


on>.- 






o 




73 




02 


I— 1 


a: 




M 




02 


CO 1— H 


03 


i-^TfH 


o 


CO ^'^ 


< 


O CO 


K 


LO t^ 


u 


CJ CM 


Cfl 


O tH 


T-l G5 




CI GO 


t/T 


CM lO 


w 


00 CI 


03 


CM CO 


^ 


O CO 


^ 


^ o 


oT 


CO C^l 


o 


00 CO 




t^ CO 




LO CO 


aT 


o o 

T-i rH 


CO 
CD 


O Oi 

1-H 


^ 


o c:s 


"th 


rH (JJ 
1^ 


1^ 


00 t^ 


'3d 


00 t^- 


0) 

"3 








'p 




.2 








s 




fcn 


tH cm 


o 


C5 CO 


o 


o o 


'tH 


CM O 


■^ 


TJH CI 


■ J^ 


CO Tj^- 


J 


r— 1 


1—1 






H 


1—1 1— t 


H 


1—1 1-H 


H 


rH rH 




t^ ^ 




S9 




coco 




-* o 




O 00 




oo o 




oo to 




o o 




lO C5 




'^ CI 




1-^ Ttl 




LO t>- 




tH 05 




^^ 




'O t^ 




lO t^ 




rH LO 




o o 




O 1-1 

1—! 1—1 




05 CI 

?H 




O C5 




oo 

1—* 1—1 




-H t^ 

1—1 




OiO 
1—1 




lOOO 




o ^ 




O CM 




^ o 




O t^ 




O co- 




t^ T-H 




^ lO 




CO CO 




^ GO 




r-1 LO 




co CO 




O 1—1 




t^ lO 




O '^ 




CO CI 




CI Tt< 




CM O 




1—1 




I— t 




00 00 




GO a 




00 t^ 




t^ 00 




C-1 CO 




t^ ^ 




Tfi 00 




lO to 




l^ t^ 




CO o 




t^ CO 




O O: 




CO CO 




1—1 rH 




"* CM 




t^ co- 




CM 1—1 




00 a: 




00 a> 




■^ o 




I> CO 




co lO 




GO >— 1 

1—1 




rH 




00 00 




Ci C5 




00 t^ 




t^ 00 




t> 'Tt^ 




O CO 




CO ^ 




ooo • 




o o 




O C5 




~^ 




tH 




rH 1— 1 




rH 1—1 




1—1 1— ( 








t^ CO 




t^ CO 




t^ o 




I> o 




I> LO 




1> LO 





-c 






o 


J^ 


T3 


_5 


o 


o 




t*-l 


a 


'3 


M 

c 


'c3 




o3 


H^H 



73 


T3 


ts 


r:S 


-d 




^ 2 !h 

t3 c a;) 






'd C 


Q^ • "^ (4—1 


•— =-« 


aj -H t-t-i 


fi-i •-< t*_i 


fli .1— ■ tj_, 


Train 
Untra 
Trans 


Train 
Untra 
Trans 


Traim 
Untra 
Trans 


Traini 
Untra 
Trans 


Train( 
Untra 
Trans 



2 





o 


ts> 




CO 


e3 




> 






•*o 


© 






^ 




^ 






<» 






■s 






^ 












•■?» 






(~ 






<» 






S-. 






CO* 






s 




•^ 


e 




<to 


^ 




s 


En 






'tr. 






o 


-ij> 









W 


a. 


a 


'^ 


« 




< 


H 


<i> 




•^ 




b-. 




o 



G^ 



O 



En 



^ 



00 



S 'i' 





CO Tti c^ 




"^ 00 (M 




CD TtH O 




b- to (M 




to 00 CO 




CDtJh O 




t^ l^ to 




0C50 




CD 1-H GO 




00 CO to 




00 00 t^ 




CO O ■* 




O CO -* 




<M b-O 




(N 1-H CO 




tOl^ 00 




t^ ^ Oi 




00 ' 00 




CO CO CD 




l-c. 




1 1—1 1-H 

1 1 




TIT 




1-H (M CO 
1 1 




1-H 1-H 

1 1 




O t:^ l>- 




Ttl 1— 1 CO 




T-l (N CD 




Tti 00 <M 




CO 00 1-H 




CD 1-H t^ 




o t^ t> 




00 lOCO 




lOO »0) 




00 Oi 00 




CO 05 CO 




OiCOOi 




CO GO '— 1 




-^ ''^' 




(N O C^ 




CO (N ^ 




00 i-H d 




O^ Oi o> 




T— 1 T— 1 CO 

1 1 








rtH 1-H to 
1 1 




(M CO 




7"T 




TtH to 

1 1 




O CO 05 




Tti O CD 




TtH CD O 




CD CO CO 




o 00 00 




OOi-H OJ 




CO CD 05 




05 CD CD 




t^OOcD 




(^J tOt^ 




Ci Oioo 




CO 00 T-H 




as 00 1>. 




c^ CO 




d lOcD 




lO (N <M 




TtH COGO 




<Ni>d 




T-( 1-H CO 

1 1 




1 




CO CO 




CSJ 1-H r-H 




1-H T-H C^ 
1 1 




1 1 




O CO CO 




1> O l^ 




o o o 




CO CO CD 




(M I> to 




O CO CO 




lOiO o 




CDO CD 




ooo 




to ■* 05 




CD CD Oi 




toco 00 




(N CO 1— t 




CDOCD 




lod to 




CO 1-H Tf 




Ti^ CDl^ 




=^°^s 




1— 1 (^J 1-H 




CD CO CO 




(M i0 1> 


Xtl 


C^ <M '^ 


cc 


GO 1 t^ 


CQ 


1-H (M 


3 












^ 








;h 




CD O 


'T^ 


1— ( CO 


'Jh 


OiO 




CO 05 


-t^ 


TtH CO 


-u 


O 00 


j -^ 


lO Oi 


-M 


'* CD 


•+-J 


ot^ 




GOt^ 


Q 


t^ CD 


o 


CO O 




t^ lO 


o 


o ■* 


o 


t^ to 


o 


OO CO 


1-H 


CO r-H 


T-H 


C2 <N 


o 


l-Ht^ 


OiOi 


1-H 1> 


T— 1 


Oi 1-H 




O 05 




GO t^ 


1-H 


1—1 








1—^ 


^ 


1-H 


cb" 


1-H 


oT 




.2i 


o c^ 




O lO 


.2^ 


l> o 




1-H to 


t/3 


lOt^ 


.2^ 

o 

72 


^fe 


's_, 


CO o 


'jn 


"^ CD 


'C 


GOO 


<a 


TjH "-^H 


CD TtH 


ss^ 


<u 


to CO 




CO CD 




CD CD 


m 


TtH '^fl 




O O 




O (M 


<»1 


aOi 


00 CD 


o 


O CD 

1-H 


< 


Oit^ 


M 

oT 


05I> 


o 

oT 


oi> 

1-H 


cc" 


CD 1—1 




00 c^ 


K 

O 


^ l:^ 




OiCO 




(M t^ 


CD 


^^ 


a; 


OO o 


•S 


■* Ol 


.s 


CD t^ 


C 


CO Oi 




00 (N 




CD <M 


C 


(M O 


to 05 


05 1-H 


'^ 


to lO 


'""' 


Tf 1> 


'""' 


00 r^ 


^ 


O C5 


'—' 


GO CD 


'""' 


Ot^ 


, 


Oioo 




OiI> 


d 


05t> 


'^ 


T— 1 








T— 1 


C 








4^ 


Tt^ CO 


'-+J 


CO t^ 


'•+3 


»0 (M 


1—1 1-H 


o 


'^ CD 


c 


TjH CO 


iTi 


1—1 1— 1 








1-H 1— 1 


_S3 


(M 1-H 


'Ui 


(M ,-H 


'^ 


I-H 1-H 


0^ 

> 


05 to 


> 


o t^ 


> 


TjHOJ 


o 


TfO 


O 


CO 05 


o 


]2'^ 




GO O 




CD CO 




05 1—" 


t^O 


O (M 




'^SS 




Oi Ttl 




GO lO 




TtH TJH 




(M CD 




00 1> 




to CI 




GO 1—1 




GO 1-H 




1-H 00 




t^O 




GO 1-H 




b-l^ 




1—1 




T-{ 




1— 1 




1-H 




1-H 








00 1—1 




Tt^ Oi 




OiCD 




Oi^ 




00 00 




CD 05 




1> lO 




CD Oi 




Oi GO 




(M t^ 




CD O 




c^3£ 




Tt T^H 




1> CD 




Tin rJH 




CO CD 




rH O 




t^ 05 




00 1—1 
1— t 




00 CD 




t^l:^ 




l>t^ 




00 00 




CD t^ 




00 C<l 




1^ CO 




CD-* 




to CD 




(M CO 




(NtO 




1-1 CD 




O lO 




00 cq 




1-H CO 




to 00 




CO CI 




CD O 




GO (M 




CO CD 




CD CD 




(M Oi 




05 l> 




00 1-H 
1—4 




00 l> 




GOI> 




1> t^ 




00 00 




CD 1> 




cDt> 




OiO 




OOO 




t^Thi 




CO to 




CD CI 




T-H 1-H 




T— t 




CI 




1-H 1-H 




1—1 1-H 




T— ( 1-H 




i> »o 




1> lO 




t> to 




t^ lO 




t^ lO 




J> to 



-r! 


Ti 


13 


X3 


TS 


-c 


Trained 

Untrainei 

Transfer 


Trained 

Untraine^ 

Transfer 


Trained 

Untraine 

Transfer 


Trained 

Untraine 

Transfer 


Trained 

Untraine 

Transfer 


Trained 

Untraine 

Transfer 



to 






l^^ .-H 


CO lO CM 


00 CO CM 


w 






■^ ■^ Ci 


»o l>- CM 


lOi-l ^ 


2 




Tf 


t-H Oi O 


02 C^l CO 


CO l' CO 






(M i-H Tf 


1 ""^ 


7 ' 7 


g 






1 


' 1 


1 1 




s 




1 1 






?^ 


© 




CO (N 00 


0^*0 


lO --H CO 


£ 




CO >0 1— t 


CO CM O 


TjH O Tt^ 


Q 


© 
> 


M 


^ (N TtH 


o o ■<* 


00 ' X 


CJi 


o 




C^ OQ 


T— 1 1 1—1 


T— 1 l-H 


s 


M 




1 1 


1 1 


1 1 


•<r^ 


a 












B 




1 1 


1 1 


1 1 


jj* 


1— 1 










•^ 


Cm 




CO O O 


CO t^ Oi 


CO --H Ttl 


h 


O 

o 
c3 


<N 


COO 0:> 

r-H GO Oi 


GO "-I CO 

CO CO d 


IlO 00 CO 
OJCMCM 






C^ CM 


1-H 1— ( 


rH CM 

1 t 


•^ 


*3 




1 1 


1 1 




Q 


© 




1 1 


1 1 


1 1 


;j 


g 




o o 


coco 


o o 


"^ 


^ 


t— ( 


CO CO 


CM CM 


o o 


^ 






,-H O " 


C^ '* 


00 o 00 






Tfi rJH 


1 


1—1 l-H 









'^ 
S 

3 



o 









CO CO CO 
O -^ 00 00 



M 05 





c3 


s 


C 


cx 


s 


'S 








(tj 


o 


CJ5 


u 


S 




o 





o 

CM CO CO 
of CO CO 



. CO lO 
o3 C5 00 

^ Ci Oi 

.-. t~» 1— I 
O CM^ 



a CO 

1— I Tf 

CiCM 
00 CM 



O lO 
CO lO 



C2 00 

o t^ 

O CO 

ooo 



CO l-H 



t^co 



02 

"rt CO CO 

•r- 00 CM 

^ COO 

o 

CM 

oT 05 CO 
a; (M l-H 

•^ C-l CO 

o Ci 00 

CO 

CO l-H 

CO O 'CO 
<D CM t^ 
-^ OiOO 

c3 



T-H lO 

CO 'f 
C5 X 



<D 



0) 



l-H CO 

oco 

CM X 
03 Cit- 



02 

a; 

r- »o CO 

^ CO o 

ri dec 



CO LO 



O CO 

CO O 
C5 O 

!>. X 



o t^ 

CO X 

t^i-H 

t^ X 



lO l-H 

XCM 
1>X 



cot^ 



I>CO 



o 



l-H CO 



t^ l-H 

-* CO 
CO t^ 

X X 



CO CM 

X X 



o a 

CO X 
XCM 
1> X 



Oco 



l>CO 



TS 


-73 


^3 


<^ t- 


<1^ ^H 


^ 5^ ^-' 


'O rt O 


T3 C S 


TS fl m 


Qi •—> t(-i 


O) •-- t*_ 


C •2'*S 


?; 03 M 


^ 03 02 

.5 i3 C! 


.s|S 


c3 "t:^ c3 


c3 "^ c3 


-1- 


;-' C ;h 


%^ ^ u 


HPH 


HPH 


HPH 



CO 



43 






>% o 



c 

CI « GQ 



03 






bC 

PI 

O 



o o 



c! _ '^ ^ 

■-S d ^ '* 

n. 15 02 02 1^ 






^« O S 



:3. 

£ bC 

b£ C O O 

^ o S P 

o^ C fl o 

o o 0-. 



C3 CO 
COS 



02 O O 

S £ £ 



o o 



&( o c;i o 



o3 c3 



;3 *- o; - - '^• 

-=: -^ ^ :^ 



o (U a) 

bC b£ bC 

o3 c3 c:3 

;-i ^ !-> 

bC bC o o o 

c3T3 > > > 

o3 c3 c3 



C c3 ^.2.2-5^ o 

—1.!^ ,. n " CJ O.,: 



11 



03 o3 



02 ' 



O 

o3 '^3^1 
^ !-i O Q_| 

02 8S I 

o_ _0)_ bC oj p^ 

ci' o3' " " 
•« ii:; a^ 
o; 0^ > 



bC.S 



dec 



o.S.£.£ 

r^ o3 c3 fl3 
^ bC b£ bfi 



'ti 



o-^ 



^H<<< r73T3 "^ 



o o o o 

0)0)0) 
b£ bC bC bC 
o3 c3 o3 o3 
-M -tJ -tJ -fci 
C i= C fl 



00>>-<lcOi-iC 

. li 

f^ t^ X O^ '-< „ , 

S_-_-,— ,— lOOJcM "^ 1^ <1^ '^ 

5^^"^^ 1 .^PhCLhAhPh 



CM 



H^ i « ^ «- 

CO -^ »0 CO CO l>"i-H ^^ ^ ^ ^ 
CO CO O: CO 02 02 CZ3 

£££££££££££££ 

:3 ;3 3 5 13 o ^^^^^^^ 

'o "o 'o 3 ooooccooo 
OOOOOQOUOOUOO 



52 VISUAL SENSE TRAINING IN CHILDREN 

the result more clearly. It will be noticed in Table 11 
that, when the amount of transfer is arranged accord- 
ing to size, Series b, in which the range of size is the 
same as in the training, has only about 17 per cent of 
transfer, while Series c, which is smaller in size than 
that of the training material, has a larger amount of 
transfer, about 30 per cent. This is probably ac- 
counted for by the large amount of negative transfer 
of horizontal lines B in Series b. Training in judging 
vertical lines probably interferes with judging hori- 
zontal lines, as the same result is shown in Table 11, 
(2), where the amount of transfer is arranged according 
to form. In (2) also it seems clear that the vertical 
lines, in which form the training has been given, have 
the largest amount of transfer. In Table 11, (3), 
where the amount of transfer is arranged according 
to the differences to be discriminated, it is easy to see 
that those differences that are farther away from the 
training, difference of Vio or Vi.- of an inch, have a smaller 
amount of transfer, while those differences that are 
nearest to the training, ¥20 or Vso of an inch, have a 
larger amount of transfer. On the whole, it is safe 
to say that those series which are most closely 
related to the trained function in size, form and differ- 
ences to be discriminated have a larger amount of 
transfer, with the exception of horizontal lines. 

Table 12 is arranged to show how the wrong judg- 
ments were made and whether the training caused 
any change in making such judgments. It seems 
clear that all the groups have made more wrong judg- 
ments when the second stimulus was larger in size; 
that is to say, there is a tendency for all the subjects 
to underestimate the second stimulus. Or, in other 
words, when a visual stimulus is withdrawn, it will 



NEW EXPERIMENTAL DATA 



53 



TABLE 11 

Total Amount of Transfer, Arranged according to Size, Form, and the 
Magnitude of Differences to be Discriminated. From Table 10 



(1) Amount of transfer as arranged according to size 




(a) 2Vio 


to 2% inches. 




• 


1 


2 


3 


4 


5 


Circles A 


—142.85 


—28.34 


—25.26 


—5.01 


Triangles " 


33.33 


—31.25 


—37.07 


—25 . 73 


Vertical lines " 


—11.03 


—37.99 


—31.77 


—64.52 


Horizontal lines " 


—44.96 


—12.73 


—31.82 


—28.52 


Total 


—165.51 


—110.31 


—125.92 


—113.76 


Average 


—41.38 


—27.58 


—31.48 


—28.44 




(b) l\i to 1% inches 






Circles B 


72.50 


—40.93 


—38.99 


—19.36 


Triangles " 


32.50 


— .43 


—2.14 


13.15 


Vertical lines " 


36.67 


— .66 


4.33 


—20.02 


Horizontal lines " 


—77.95 


—28.88 


—30.31 


—39.73 


Circles a 


41.30 


—29.96 


—24.18 


—40.91 


Triangles " 


—4.26 


—10.09 


—14.06 


3.22 


Horizontal lines " 


18.00 


—22.34 


—18.45 


—16.42 


Total 


118.76 


—133.89 


—123.80 


—120.07 


Average 


16.97 

(c) U 


—19.13 
to 1 inch 


—17.69 


—17.15 


Circles C 


12.59 


—1.71 


—4.89 


18.64 


Triangles " 


11.11 


—21.65 


—41.34 


—28.26 


Vertical lines " 


75.00 


—36.60 


—52.56 


—13.80 


Horizontal lines " 


20.83 


—50.19 


—59.27 


—18.40 


Total 


119.53 


—110.15 


—158.06 


—41.82 


Average 


29.88 


—27.54 


—39.51 


—10.45 


(2) Amount ( 


of transfer as 


\ arranged according to 


form 




(a) 


Circles 






Circles A 


—142.85 


—28.34 


—25.26 


5.01 


B 


72.50 


—40.93 


—38.99 


—19.36 


C 


12.59 


—1.71 


—4.89 


18.64 


a 


41.30 


—29.90 


—24.18 


—40.91 


Total 


—16.46 


—80.94 


—93.32 


—36.62 


Average 


—4.11 


—20.23 


—23.33 


9.15 




(b) Triangles 






Triangles A 


33.33 


—31.25 


—37.07 


—25.73 


B 


32.50 


— .43 


—2.14 


13.15 


C 


11.11 


—21.05 


—41.34 


—28.26 


a 


—4.26 


—10.69 


—14.06 


3.22 


Total 


72.68 


—64.02 


—94.61 


—37.62 


Average 


18.17 


—16.00 


—23.65 


—9.40 



54 



VISUAL SENSE TRAINING IN CHILDREN 



TABLE 11— Continued 

(2) Amount of transfer as arranged according to form 

(c) Vertical lines 



Vertical lines 


A 


—11.03 


—37.99 


—31.77 


—64.52 


ii (I 


B 


36.67 


— .68 


4.33 


—20.02 


« (( 


C 


75.00 


—36.60 


—52.56 


—13.80 


Total 




100.64 


—75.25 


—80.00 


—98.34 


Average 




33.55 


—25.08 


—26.67 


—32.78 






(d) Horizontal lines 






Horizontal lines A 


—44.96 


—12.73 


—31 . 82 


—28.52 


u << 


B 


—77.95 


—28.88 


—30.31 


—39.73 


<< (< 


C 


20.83 


—50.19 


—59.27 


—18.40 


(( << 


a 


18.00 


—22.34 


—18.45 


—16.42 


Total 




—84.08 


—114.14 


—139.85 


—103.07 


Average 




—21.02 


—28.53 


—34.96 


—25.77 



(3) Amount of transfer as arranged according to the differences to be 

discriminated 
(a) Difference of Vio of an inch 



Ci rcles 


A 


— 


-142.85 


—28.34 


—25.26 


5.01 


Triangles 


a 




33.33 


—31.25 


—37.07 


—25.73 


Vertical lines 


i( 


- 


—11.03 


—37.99 


—31 . 77 


—64.52 


Hor izontal lines 


11 




—44.96 


—12.73 


—31.82 


—28.52 


Total 




— 


-165.51 


—110.31 


—125.92 


—113.76 


Average 






—41 . 38 


—27.58 


—31.48 


—28.44 






(b) 


Difference 


of i/i.i of an 


I inch 




Circles 


B 




72.50 


—40.93 


—38.99 


—19.36 


Triangles 


11 




32.50 


— .43 


—2.14 


13.15 


Vertical lines 


11 




36.67 


— .66 


4.33 


—20.02 


Horizontal lines 


11 


— 


-77.95 


—28.88 


—30.31 


—39.73 


Total 






63.72 


—70.90 


—67.11 


—85.96 


Average 






15.93 


—17.72 


—16.78 


—16.49 






(c) 


Difference 


of \2\) of an 


inch 




Circles 


C 




12.59 


—1.71 


—4.89 


18.64 


Triangles 


(( 




11.11 


—21.65 


—41 . 34 


—28.26 


Vertical lines 


it 




75.00 


—36.60 


—52.56 


—13.80 


Horizontal lines 


ii 




20.83 


—50.19 


—59.27 


—18.40 


Total 






119.53 


—110.15 


—158.06 


—41.82 


Average 






29.88 


—27.54 


—39.51 


—10.45 






(d) 


Difference 


! of Vao of an 


inch 




Circles 


a 




41 . 30 


—29.96 


—24.18 


—40.91 


Triangles 


(I 




—4.26 


—10.69 


—14.06 


3.22 


Horizontal lines 


a 




18.00 


—22.34 


—18.45 


—16.42 


Total 






55.04 


62.99 


—56.69 


—54.11 


Average 






18.35 


—21.00 


—18.90 


—18.04 



Column 2 — Transfer, percentage of wrong judgments. 

Column 3 — • Transfer, percentage of average reaction time. 

Column 4 — Transfer, percentage of average reaction time of right 
judgments only. 

Column 5 — -Transfer, percentage of average reaction time of wrong 
judgments only. 



NEW EXPERIMENTAL DATA 55 

be imagined in the majority of cases larger than it 
really is. In regard to whether training has caused 
any changes in making the wrong judgments, the 
table has failed to show any marked difference between 
the trained and the untrained groups. Both groups 
have increased their number of over-estimations of 
the smaller stimulus — the trained, from 118 to 129 
and the untrained, from 118 to 144 — and have decreased 
their number of under-estimations of the larger stimu- 
lus — the trained, from 185 to 141 and the untrained 
from 154 to 120. 

Table 13 gives the total average amount of transfer, 
taking the various series of tests as a whole. It is 
evident that the amount of transfer is small when com- 
pared with the length of time the subjects have been 
trained, in spite of the fact that these various series 
are very closely related to the function trained. Table 
13 also indicates that the improvement due to transfer 
is largely a result of lengthened reaction time. The 
trained group gained 11.27 per cent of correct judg- 
ments at the expense of nearly 19 per cent of time. 
On the other hand, the untrained group, which did 
not lose any time, had a small amount of gain. With 
the control group, the average reaction time was even 
larger than that of the trained group in their final test, 
which may account for their making the lowest number 
of wrong judgments of all the three groups. The 
reason why the control group should have spent more 
time and made fewer wrong judgments is partly ex- 
plained by the fact that they were more capable pupils 
and made fewer wrong judgments throughout all the 
tests. In addition to this, the test was more of a 
novelty to them than to the other two groups, and 
hence they were willing to give to the judgments the 



56 VISUAL SENSE TRAINING IN CHILDREN 

full time that seemed to them necessary. Table 13 
shows very plainly that, as the various series of the 
test went on, there was shown by all the three groups a 
general decrease of reaction time and an increase of 
wrong judgments. As in the training, this was an 
indication of lack of interest in the experiment. How- 
ever, the decrease of reaction time can account for 
only part of the increase in wrong judgments as the 
various series went on. The smaller forms and the 

TABLE 12 

Wrong Judgments Made by the Three Groups, Before and After Training 







Preliminary Test 




Final Test 










Trained 


Untrained 


Trained 


Untrained 


Control 


Column 




Group 


Group 


Group 


Group 


Group 






1 


2 


3 


4 


5 


6 


7 


8 


9 


10 


Test Series 






















Circle 


A 


4 


3 


8 


6 


7 


4 


2 





1 


4 


Circle 


B 


4 


6 


3 


5 


6 


3 


2 


11 





5 


Circle 


C 


1 


12 


4 


7 


6 


3 


4 


5 





2 


Triangle 


A 


9 


9 


3 


7 


9 


3 


6 


4 


2 


3 


Triangle 


B 


7 


9 


4 


6 


10 


4 


7 


5 


1 


1 


Triangle 


C 


3 


6 


4 


5 


10 


3 


10 


4 


3 


1 


Vertical 


A 


9 


7 


8 


9 


7 


6 


4 


9 





4 


Vertical 


B 


4 


5 


5 


5 


2 


1 


5 


2 





1 


Vertical 


C 


11 


9 


4 


4 


5 


10 


8 


4 


3 


2 


Horiz. L. 


A 


7 


10 


6 


8 


12 


9 


6 


5 


4 


5 


Horiz. L. 


B 


7 


6 


3 


12 


12 


12 


11 


5 


4 


2 


Horiz. L. 


C 


6 


10 


4 


8 


8 


6 


8 


5 


6 


3 


Circle 


a 


18 


28 


22 


19 


4 


23 


16 


25 


4 


8 


Triangle 


a 


16 


27 


25 


22 


14 


30 


30 


15 


12 


7 


Horiz. L. 


a 


12 


38 


15 


31 


17 


24 


25 


21 


13 


12 


Total 




118 


185 


118 


154 


129 


141 


144 


120 


53 


60 



Columns 1, 3, 5, 7, 9 indicate wrong judgments made when the 
second stimulus was smaller in size, or an over-estimation of the smaller 
stimulus. 

Columns 2, 4, 6, 8, 10 indicate wrong judgments made when the 
second stimulus was larger in size, or an under-estimation of the larger 
stimulus. 

The same arrangement is followed in the next table, 13. 






o 






e 
^ 

g 
b 



•1 = 






55 






o 

u 

O 

o 

G 



■s i> 






O 

O 

G 






a 

o 

H 



(M(M(MCai-H'-l^r-(r-H,-l,-lrt,-lTHr-^ 



t^colr^l>t>coOcCit^OOCOcocO 
OCOOOOCOOCOOOOOOCCCO 



i-i CO (M CO '^ O 00 



OS-^t^OiOC^OOOLOOCiOTticOLOi— I 
i— iCO-^iOCvJCOOLOCOi—iTjiC^OCOi-H 
^:^^OlOlOlOLOGOCOTt^^^^-OT^lLOTt^CO 



COCOOt^OOOOOOCOCOOt^ 
COi— i>OCD'^OOOTjiTti(M(NOOO»OCO 



(M 



C<J(MC^T-i(M(MC0(Mi:Olr^l> 



COaOCOOiOr-iOtNOOLOOCi^rt^ 
TtiTfCOCO(M(M'^<MiOCOCO'*r}HcOCO 



t^OCii-HOOOCO-^OCOOO-TtHT-H 



T-(i— Ii-Ht-i(M,— ICSJ (MCOCOClCOOuo 



Oi— i0i0iiOC0C^Ot01>C0t0O00'— I 
iOCOOOOO(N'-ht— iiO(MOCiTrCOt^OO 
•COOOTfiO>Ot^(MTti«OlOt^lOt^COCO 



COCOCOl>OOOOOOOOCOCOt^ 
COCOGOCOOOO-^OCOOOOrttOOXO 

(Mi-(T-(r-lCqi-(COC^'-l(NCOC^OI>t> 



CJOC^oocO'-Ht^ooooasoc^iocq 
i>.(MOcotoaicoioo:oot^aii:^c^(M 



ococoi>a5Ci050icocoocii>TtiTti 

O'!ti00iO(MC<l(N(M00TfiXC^>0i-tf-( 



i-ii-Ht-H(N(Nt-I(Mi-H(N(Mi— (CQOCOt^ 



«2 ..... 






o 

o 



CO 



GO 

05 



CO 



CO 






1— I 

o 

(M 



CO 



00 
CO 



00 
CD 



C5 



00 



00 

o 
1> 



CO 



CO 



o 



CO 

o 



CO 



o 

CO 



(M 



t^ 00 



00 Tt^ 



C^ CO 



00 



03 



s s 

o o 

faC bC 

CD O) 

« o 
^ ;-i 

Oh Oh 



T3 



o . 






£■2 



S3 C3 

.s.s 

o <u 

bC W) 

c3 cS 

> ^ 

a; o 

II 

t-^o6~ 

»o<:0*" 

COtiT 
tn en 

a B 

.— H I— t 

o o 



58 NEW EXPERIMENTAL DATA 

smaller differences to be discriminated also caused an 
increased number of wrong judgments. The "a,'' 
series, having the smallest differences to be discrim- 
inated, had the largest number of wrong judgments. 
Since all the ''a" series had 20 trials while the other 
series had 10, divide by two to compare with the rest. 

Summary for Discrimination of Size 

1. When the tested function was closely related to 
the trained function, within the field of visual discrimi- 
nation, there was a small amount of transfer. 

2. The larger amounts of transfer took place with 
those series which were most closely related to the 
trained function in form, size, and magnitude of dif- 
ferences to be discriminated. 

3. There was an indication that training in the 
discrimination of vertical lines interfered with the 
discrimination of horizontal lines. 

4. There was a tendency to underestimate the second 
stimulus in judging sizes ranging from H to 2% inches. 

5. The amount of interest children showed in 
sense discrimination had something to do with the num- 
ber of successful judgments. 

6. The number of wrong judgments increased as 
the magnitude of the differences to be discriminated 
grew smaller. 

7. The various series of the final tests again con- 
firmed our finding in the training, that improvement 
in visual discrimination is largely a function of reac- 
tion time. If the subject lengthened the reaction time, 
he decreased the number of wrong judgments, and 
vice versa. 



NEW EXPERIMENTAL DATA 



59 



Experiment 2 

The second experiment was conducted at the same 
school and at the same time as the first experiment, 
with different subjects from the same grades. Table 
14 shows the age, teachers' estimate of this group of 
subjects, and mental improvement from 1911 to 1912 
according to the Binet tests. 

TABLE 14 



Subject 


Age in Jan., 


Teachers' Estimate 


Mental Improvement 




1914 




1911 to 1912 


XVII 


9 


good 


1.4 years 


XVIII 


12 


average 


1.2 " 


XIX 


10 


good 


1.2 " 


XX 


10 


average 


1.4 '• 


XXI 


13 


average 


.0 " 


XXII 


11 


average 


.6 " 


XXIII 


12 


good 


.8 " 


XXIV 


10 


good 


1.4 " 


XXV 


11 


average 


.8 " 


XXVI 


10 


good 


.8 " 


Average 


10.8 




.96 '' 



For the preliminary and final tests a printed page of 
nonsense words of three letters each was used. Each 
subject came into the experiment room in the morn- 
ing on one of the school days, sat down at the desk 
and was shown a paper with a written alphabet. 
This alphabet was divided into two parts, from a 
to 771 and from n to z, thus : 

abcdefghijklm 
nopqrstuvwxyz 

The subject memorized the letters belonging to each 
half of the alphabet for about three minutes, after 
which he was given a page of the nonsense words and 



o 



f^ 












O^T-ltOl>lOO'-lr-(r-ICO 



(M I CO I ^ 



P, 1 (NCiOr-HOq^OiCO^OcD 



_, I 00 t^ r-H r-H 00 Oi O O r+^ J^ ^ 



© 

■s <^ 
p 





lO 00 



OrHOOi-^OOC^JiMOO 



oocoo(Na2i>'-'j:o(MOi 






^ t. S§S;:S8S§o§| 



PQ 



C!5 






osOi-^iotoioi-HcocoT-ioo 



rO' 




lO 


^ 






^ 


m 




?t 




■* 


"W 


13 




bs 


a 




> 


S 






"5 


CO 


Cs 






§£ 


-!-> 




^ 


.i3 




•g 


^ 


(M 


V- 






^ 







(N 
t^ 









00 

CO 



00 



CO 



00 



CO 



■§ 
00 



OO'-iiO00»OO'-<'-''-'C^ 



1 O (M <N t- 3 CO CO CO ^ g5 



rr>-rHCOiOOOiC<jOCOCOCO 

^;Z;SS^c<icoco^cog^l 



^S^COOCOCqOTl^iOcOC^ 






x 



X 



xRW^Xh 



bC 
bC ri 



t3 



o o 

o o 

CO CO 

p O 



t+-i o 



o o 






O 03 

C.S2 bC 
O 5 fl 

's 8 ?3 

-t-» 

u p Q 
O t ^ 



^ 



CO i-H o3 



'OS' 



1 I I 

cor>oo' 



t» CO CO t/2 _ 

fl fl 1=1 C fl « 

s a a s as 

'o 'o 'o "o 'o o 
OUOOOO 



e 




•-rs 




l-»H 








^ 


S 


« 


a> 


^ 


> 




o 



o 

1—1 



•<s> 



o 



5- 5^ 



g 

^ 

^ 



e 

^ 









lOTtiCOOiMiOOcOCOLO 
CO CI CO 1 I ^ (^1 



lOiCOCOOOOLOiOOO 



COOSfN-^l-^OOOOCDrHO 






i-HO(M'^-HCT,-HCit^00 
CO 1— 1 -^ 1— I 1— 1 »o c^ 



■^GCt^'-'OCSCOOCOiO 



coocroc^(Mt^ococoio 

T-H 1— I (N 1— I 1— I I— t C<J C^ <M 



c 

•p CO 



p^ 



C^(N^COO(MCOTjH-<*iO 



CO T-H r-l 



OCOCCI^^OiOO'O'^cO 

LOi— IT;t*'— '^COOOCOlO 



COCliCOLOOGOO(MiO 

-^(Mi-ho<moococdooco 

,—1 T— I CO 1—1 T— I I— ! 1— I 






O 
O 


GO 


O 
to 




lO 




00 
1—1 


rH 
1 


1 


1 


to 
CO 


1—1 


CD 




O 


CD 





00 



00 

o 



Oi 
00 



00 

00 



CD 



Oi 



GO 
CO 
lO 



CO 



o3 

O 



03 
Pi 

o 
<ii 






go 

I ^ 

O O 

c:i cj 

cc en 

o o 

o o 

c o 

s s 



..2 

d '»5 
0.22 

C O 

O O 

o o 



o o 



K^^WW 



.-^O rH (M CO 

^ I— i 1—1 1—1 1—1 

13 ^ ^ ^ ^ 

I c^Tco^'^io" 

m m m m 

i=! Cl fl !=1 C 

s s § g § 
UOOOO 



62 VISUAL SENSE TRAINING IN CHILDREN 

asked to underline words that contained either two 
or three letters in the last half of the alphabet, begin- 
ning from the top of the page. The operator watched 
the time. When ten minutes were up the subject 
stopped marking. The following three lines copied 
from the testing page will make the experiment clear: 



itp 


dje 


zna 


dkt 


giy 


hkr 


cbe 


dby 


vhl 


xgt 


hju 


wdy 


zxi 


fgy 


hkp 


msj 


vgr 


fte 


sdw 


cng 


bjy 


dhe 


cgx 


zaq 



For training, a different page containing the same 
kind of nonsense words was used, but the subjects 
were asked to underline words containing either two 
or three letters in the first half of the alphabet. Each 
subject was trained three periods averaging about 83^ 
minutes each. The preliminary test took place in 
December, 1913, the training in January and February, 
1914, and the final test in March, 1914. The interval 
between the dates of testing was two months and 
between each of the trainings was about 12 days for 
each subject. The improvement from the training 
is presented in Table 15. 

The improvement of the final test over the prelimi- 
nary test is shown in Table 16. 

Table 16, however, does not show the amount of 
transfer from training, because the influence of the 
preliminary test has not been checked out. Owing 
to the limited number of subjects available, an un- 
trained group was not provided for. The author 
assumed that the effect of the first training upon the 
second training would be about the same as the effect 
of the first or preliminary test upon the second or 
the final test. If this had been true, the difference 
between the first and the second training might have 
served as a substitute for a check by an untrained 



NEW EXPERIMENTAL DATA 63 

group. This assumption was incorrect, because the 
interval between the preliminary and the final tests 
was about four times as long as the interval between 
each of the trainings. In accordance with the law 
of disuse therefore the function of marking the last 
half of the alphabet was more weakened than that of 
marking the first half. The amount of transfer cer- 
tainly should be more than is shown in Table 17, 
just how much more the writer is unable to say. 

For lack of a proper check of the influence of the 
preliminary test, the amount of transfer in the experi- 
ment is of little significance. However, there are 
other points of interest that this experiment has brought 
out. 

In the first place, the quicker improvement in mark- 
ing letters of the alphabet as compared with sense 
training deserves consideration. There was more im- 
provement after two trainings in marking letters of 
the alphabet than there was after 40 trainings in dis- 
criminating differences of size. The introspection 
of the two trained groups throws some light on this 
point of difference. In the experiment with sense 
discrimination, when the subjects were asked to explain 
the reason of their improvement, four out of the seven 
subjects could not give any reason at all, while the 
other three merely stated: ''I give them a good long 
look" (subject I), ^'I do not hurry myself to say 
'shorter' or 'longer'" (Subject VI), ''I looked at them 
harder and tried to keep the first figure in my head'^ 
(Subject VII). This indicates that the only device 
developed by the training was that of lengthening 
the reaction time. Only two out of seven subjects 
were even vaguely conscious that a longer time was 
necessary in order to judge more correctly. On the 






5S 



•<s> 






1^ 



O 



Pi- 






a - 



OOOirOr-iLOO(Ni— lO 






"^Oi— li— I 1— iCOiXii— i>o 



LCTtiLOOOiOCOOi— ICOO 
GO i-H C^l C^ (M t^ rti 00 I I> 



2 ^ 

a 
o 
o 



be 

g 
'S 

d 



fe 



OOfN'— iCOOOcOTtiC^ 



-* CO CO CO 



1— i(MrHO(MTt<00(MCO 
GOOi"«^(rOCOLOO(M'<tiCO 



coooiO'-Hi>.T— ir^cOi— i(:o 

■^T-iOOC-^Ot^Ot^(M^ 

irHC^ C^,_|f^,_(,_iT_|(^ 



OOC^'^0>00'^CO(M 



>0i-t'*O(MOOC0»0(M 
CO (M GO (M rt< r-, 



cOOcOCOCiOOiOOIr^t^ 
COCOiM-tiC^COcOCOC^t^ 



1— f^OOifMOOt^iOCiCO 
COOcOTtiOOOi'^CiC^-^ 

1—1 C^ T-l T— ( 1— I rH 



^ >< ^ >< Ixl "^ X 





CO 


CO 








1—1 


CO 
CO 


1—1 




CO 
05 




10 






1—1 




CO 



pq 



CO 



o 



.< 






<» CO 






T— 1 


S 


CD 


^ 




s 


^'^ 


►>N 


CD t-l 


« 


S rt 


"^^ 


QJ'-H 


e 


c3 




h 


g 


a r 




^,B 


J^ 




hH 


't;^ 


*+-! /^-T 


g 


(N 


« 




s 


c3 CO 


> 


i=J f^l 




K 




a =3 




fH 'TH 


;S 





Q 


OhO 


S 



a 

























"K 








EC 








■3 W) 













05 


r-H 


s 





CO 


CO 


P 


d 


d 


d 


tM S 


iO 


(M 


(M 


a. 








'£ c 








— ' 








su 








s^ 








w 








^ 

































'c^ 








73 








s ^ 


i> 





t^ 


0^ 





1—1 


CO 




06 


Tt^ 


(N 


iM 


1—1 


'^ 


<D 


T-i 




r-H 


^ 


1 




1 


1- fl 


1 




1 


—' 








t-< 








t-i 








w 








Kl 








P T3 
















«" '5 


10 


CO 


CO 


<> 


CO 


Oi 


(N 


?r ^ 


CO 


»o 


d 


00 '— 

^1 


TtH 


10 


1 


sg 








H 

fe 








.&H 








CC 








TJ 








Lh 

















^ 








=" "§ 


CO 





CD 


£ 





T— ( 


05 


5^ S 
^0 


(N 


d 


c<i 


^ 


CO 




-2 








c 








OJ 








CJ 








u 








© 








Ph 












q; 1—1 






Cm 



-<-3 


03 -t^ 






rt 







<D 


-U3 -^ 


U-l 




C M bX) 
IcdcS.S 


CC 

o3 




^T-l 


G 


S-i 







n- --3 


■f^ 




f- a:) 


c3 






/-I 03 


CD -u 




-1-3 




— 


^C 


;=! 




C3 







^ 


.^"S 


s 






QS 


<1 




o; 


s 






-+^ 


-tj 





NEW EXPERIMENTAL DATA 65 

other hand, every subject in the second experiment 
had something more or less definite to say when asked 
to give his reasons for improvement. ''The two parts 
of the alphabet are more clear to me now, I can tell 
in which part almost every letter belongs" (Subject 
XXV). ''There were a few letters which I was not 
sure where they belonged at first, now they do not 
trouble me very much" (Subject XXIV). These 
introspections were confirmed by their own records. 
XXV constantly omitted to underline words contain- 
ing the letter j in the training and marked them wrong- 
ly in the tests, evidently thinking it belonged to the 
last half of the alphabet. XXIV had similar trouble 
with the letters j and k. XXIII was troubled with 
the letter j and XXVI with the letter k. These were 
the subjects who made mistakes consistently when a 
certain letter or letters were found in the words. Why 
should ./ and k be placed in the second half of the 
alphabet instead of I and m, which are nearer to the 
second half of the alphabet than they? If this was 
not a mere accident, the writer suspects it was because 
when children were taught the alphabet, k was often 
made the stopping place for breath, while I and m 
were often grouped with n-o-p, and j and k, being thus 
placed at the end of a group of letters, would probably 
be felt to be later in the alphabet than they really are. 
To go on with the introspection, "I do not need to 
repeat the alphabet as much as I did at the beginning, 
in order to place a letter where it belonged" (Subject 
XIX). "The places of the letters are now clearer to 
me" (Subject XXI). "I have got a way to find 
whether a letter belongs to the first half of the alphabet, 
to join that letter with another letter which I am sure 
belongs to either part of the alphabet by repeating 



66 VISUAL SENSE TRAINING IN CHILDREN 

other letters around it" [by repeating the alphabet] 
(Subjects XVII and XVIII). It seems clear from 
these introspections that, first, every subject realized 
that the means of success depended upon the right 
placing of the letters into the two halves; and second, 
at least three methods were developed to accomplish 
this purpose: namely, each letter was recognized inde- 
pendently as to the half in which it belonged ; the alpha- 
bet was repeated as a whole, or in groups; or a letter 
was associated with other letters of the position of 
which the subject was sure. It seems that the quicker 
improvement in the second experiment is accounted 
for by the realization of where the difficulty of the 
problem lies and by the greater possibilities of de- 
veloping methods to meet this difficulty. In dis- 
criminating size the means for better success were 
not easily realized and the possibility of developing 
methods was very limited. Subjects XVII, XVIII 
and XX had no method whatever at the beginning of 
the test. During the first test, as well as in the first 
training, they often stopped and looked up into the air, 
scratched their heads, stretched their legs, or tapped 
their teeth with the pencil. Toward the last of the ex- 
periment these signs all stopped, when each had a ''way" 
of placing the letters. Method is an important aid to 
quick improvement. This point has already been 
brought out by Ruger in his experiment on the solving 
of puzzles. 2 The curve of learning rose suddenly 
whenever a successful method was hit upon. In our 
first experiment, which did not favor the development 
of methods, the improvement was slow, whereas in our 
second experiment, which was more favorable to the 

2" Ruger, H. A. The Psychology of Efficiency, Archives of Psychology, 
Vol. 2, No. 15, 1910. 



NEW EXPERIMENTAL DATA 



67 



development of methods, the improvement was much 
more rapid. 

In the second place, the experiment shows that 
intelligence as manifested in school studies went with 
intelligence in marking letters. The five good pupils, 
as estimated by the teachers, contributed 69.10 per 
cent of the improvement in the number of words 
covered and 83.95 per cent of the improvement in 
the number of words correctly marked, while they 
contributed only 19.15 per cent of the omissions and 
6.25 per cent of the commissions. 

TABLE 18 
Amount of Improvement Contributed by the Good and Average Pupils. 





No. of Words 
Covered 


No. of Words 
Correctly ISIarked 


Errors of 
Omission 


Errors of Com- 
mission 


Good Pupils. . . 
Average Pupils 


293 or 69.10% 
131 '' 30.90% 


196 or 83.05% 
40 " 16.95% 


—9 or —19.15% 

—38 " —80.85% 


1 or 6.25% 
15 " 93.75% 


Total 


424 '' 100.00% 


236 " 100.00% 


—47 " —100.00% 


16 " 100.00% 



Summary for Experiment 2 

1. Three trainings in marking letters of the alphabet 
have shown more improvement than 40 trainings in 
discriminating sizes ranging from M to 23^^ inches 
with differences to be discriminated ranging from Vso 
to Vio of an inch. 

2. The different rate of improvement seemed to 
depend upon locating the difficulty of the problem 
and developing methods to meet the difficulty. If 
the difficulty of the problem was not easily localized 
and its nature not favorable for the development of 
methods, the rate of improvement was slow. 

3. There was a positive correlation between success 
in school subjects and success in marking letters. 



68 visual sense training in children 

Experiment 3 

This experiment was conducted in the Psychological 
Labor atorj^ of the University of Michigan in the sum- 
mer of 1913. It consisted of marking five-lettered 
nonsense words of which the following three lines are 
samples : 



yabgt 


bgtre ojrns mrjau 


nruyt 


nhygv pkiuw sdfgh 


bytfd 


zdtey 


ngtew pokmn asdrt 


dghtr 


xdrty qwerp zsduy 


iuytr 


pkgds 


asdew werty yfonk 


cazpo 


hjiow qshru jhgfr 


ygvcd 



In the preliminary and final tests the subjects were 
asked to connect with a dash all pairs of adjacent 
words where one word contained three consecutive 
letters not found in the other. Beginning from the 
top of the page, the first word was compared with the 
second, then the second was compared with the 
third, and so on to the end of the line. The last word 
of each line was compared with the first word in the 
next. For the training, eight other pages with the 
same kind of nonsense words were prepared. Instead 
of marking words containing three consecutive letters 
that weie not the same, the subjects were asked to 
place a dash between two words which contained two 
adjacent letters that were in common. In the test 
the task was to ignore letters that were in common and 
attend to letters that were different and in the training 
the task was to ignore letters that were different and 
attend to those that were the same. Both tasks were 
to attend to certain letters and ignore others, the 
difference consisted in what letters to attend and what 
to ignore; thus the two activities were closely related. 
The experiment was performed three times, each 
time with one trained subject and one or two untrained 
subjects. The following table furnishes important 
data regarding these subjects: 



NEW EXPERIMENTAL DATA 



69 



TABLE 19 

Standing of Subjects in Marking Five-Letter Nonsense Words 



Subject 


Part taken in Age in 
experiment August, 1913 

First Performance 


Year in School 


XXVII 
XXVIII 


Training and tests 13 
Tests only 13.4 

Second Performance 


Fourth grade 


XXIX 
XXX 


Training and tests 15. 1 
Tests only 15.6 

Third Performance 


Sixth " 
Seventh " 


XXXI 

XXXII 

XXXTII 


Training and tests 24 . 3 
Tests only 26 
u a 27 2 


Freshman, college 
Senior, " 
Freshman, " 



All the work was done in the Psychological Labora- 
tory at about 7 P. M. in the months of July and August, 
1913. In each performance the trained and untrained 
subjects were tested together and during training the 
untrained subjects remained away. Table 20 gives 
the results of the training, and Table 21 the amount 
of transfer, of the three performances. 

It will be noticed that the improvement in marking 
the letters of the alphabet shown by this experiment 
is again much greater than it was in sense discrimina- 
tion. The introspections of the three trained subjects 
were especially enlightening. Subject XXVII: ^'At 
first, I could only compare the words letter by letter. 
Later on, I became so familiar with the work that I 
could compare two or three letters in the words all 
at once." Subject XXIX: ^^When I began this work, 
I had to compare words by groups of two or three 
[letters]. Now it seems that the letters that are the 
same in two words stand out more clearly. The only 
thing I have to do is to pick out the letters that are 



Oi-HO 



o 



i£!(M (M 



O 

to 









lO lO -^ 
1-1 CO 00 



CD (M r^ 
COOt^ 



CO 



CO 
CO 



cc 



o 

(N 

< 









o 






C5J 



bC 



o 



000 



CO 10 O 



050^ 
Tf (M CO 



CO t^ i-H 

10 (M 00 

rH C^ (M 



lO 10 GO 
CO i-H 



O CO CO 



CO >o O 



Oi (N r-H 



> 



I rN 



X 






CO 



CO 
O 
CO 



CO 
CO 
CO 



GO 
10 



CO 



05 
CO 



CO 



o 



bJO 

CI 
o 



n3 

o 

c3 






2 5 

CD ^;z; 
o « I 



^ o 
tc 

a M a 
^.2 S 

•^ O^ 
vi-' t4-i o 
O O j^ 
!_i Uc 9^ 

a S § 
iz;^ 1 



Tt< 



(N CO 



GO Ci i-t 



CO 



(N CO -^ >0 



00 DO OC !B 

c e fl CI 1=1 fl 

a a a a a a 

'o'o'o'^'o'o 
OOOOQO 



NEW EXPERIMENTAL DATA 71 

the same and then to see whether they are together 
or not." Subject XXXI: ''For the first days I tried 
to compare the words as a whole and this was rather 
confusing. Later on, I happened to think there could 
be no possibihty of the words having two adjacent 
letters in common if the three letters in the center of 
the two words were all different. Since that my atten- 
tion has been directed more to the central letters of 
the words. Many words which usually wasted time 
were skipped this way." It became very evident 
from these introspections that the amount of improve- 
ment depended upon the methods that were employed. 
In spite of the fact that Subject XXIX had more 
training than XXXI, the latter showed a greater 
amount of improvement. This confirms our finding 
in the preceding experiment, that the methods em- 
ployed are the primary factors determining amount of 
improvement. 

By comparing the age of the different subjects it 
will be seen that the older subject always had the 
advantage over the younger subject in his ability to 
develop better time-saving methods. Even at the 
very beginning of the training there was a difference 
of method. Subject XXVII compared the words 
letter by letter; Subject XXIX, by groups of letters 
of two or three; and Subject XXXI, by whole words. 
This suggests that the older subject, having had more 
experience in reading, had already developed methods 
which the younger subject was not capable of at the 
start. This would indicate that there are certain 
''lower" methods which must be mastered before any 
"higher" methods can be attempted. In this particu- 
lar case there are evidently three grades of methods, 
the letter method, the letter-group method and the 



02 



05 















e 

^ 



Ph 









O O CO 



000 

iC O to 
(M • • • 

'-' (M O (M 
1— I O 1— I 



ec Oi (N 
CO CO o 



CO t^ i-H 

CO I Til 



to C5 TjH 

1— I 00 o 

o ■ • • 

rH O CO Tt^ 
1—1 1— I CS| 






CO Ci 
C4 



*ti 00 i> CO 



O 
Ph 



o c^ 



CO"* 



CO C5 



g 










4^ 








Eh 


■* 


00 --H 


^ 


>> 






?i 


es 






*C^ 


s 












10 CO 


^ 


g 


M 


1—1 1—1 


■& 


"^ 






5S 






OSCO 


ii 




C^ 


COCO 


^ 








'^ 








■V* 








s 








s 
























Ot^CO 

o CO CO 



O coco 
o CO CO 



o 
o 

d 
o 

CO 



8 



1> 1— I 00 



rf CO 00 



CO CO O 

T-< (M 

-1-3 . . . 

C CO O CO 



X 



'^t^ 



to CO 

10 CSJ 



Ph 

d 
o 

02 






cot^ 



00 (M 

COtJH 



00 
COCO 



k> X "^ 
X ^ 



X 



Ir^ (M O 00 Oi 
CO -<:*< o 10 c^ 



COOi 00 O 
CO CI C5 CO CO 



o t^ 

O CO 

dcD Q 
Oco O 



O CO Ttll^ CO 

o CO rH '^ cq 

10 CO i>! d »o 
^ cocoi>f^ 



CO O rtH -^ C^ 
(M CO csi 00 O 

-i-= O 00 10 fO '"' 

rt CO-* cooo^ 

<1> 






(N 10 



O O >0 CO 

o 
o 

C o -^ 00 

S 

O 

^ COI>o 



(MCOo 



X 

^- + 

HH 

X. 

X 

,x 



^ t— I 



xdMo^ 



i> Oi 00 

CD (M CO 



CO O CO 
CO CO CO 



o 
o 



o 

o 



O COI> 



10 10 05 
-* COO 



CO (M 1—1 
(M Oi CO 



O T-H CO 
CO ■* i-H 



X 
X 
X 

a 

03 



XXH^ ^XH 



X s 



T3 

o 
o3 



>. 






C3 M 
0.2 

S 2 fl ^ 

g 03 C O 

0000 

;-> vi ;h ;-< 

a o o o 

s a s s 

:3 3 := 13 



.---.O t-H C-T CO 

,^ l-H 1— I 1— I 1— I 

:3 ^ ^ ^ » 

(X!COl>00Oi 
I (M"co'~'*'ic" 

03 K CO 03 

rt i=l C3 rt c 

s s s a s 

^^^^^ 
'o'o'o3 o 

00000 



NEW EXPERTMENTAL DATA 73 

whole- word method. The older subject was able to 
develop more efficient methods, because he had already 
mastered the '4ower" methods. 

Table 21 reveals a regular increase in the amount 
of transfer from the first performance of the experiment 
to the last. The reason for this increase can be found 
from the introspections of the subjects after the final 
test. ''I compared the words as they were in the 
practising pages (in letter groups of two or three). 
Only I look for letters that are different this time" 
(Subject XXVII). '^ I look first for the letters that are 
different and second to see whether they are connected" 
(Subject XXIX). ^'The central letters of the words 
to be compared are of great importance. If either of 
the central letters is found anywhere in the other 
word, there will be no possibility of having three consecu- 
tive letters that are mutually different. Time is thus 
saved" (Subject XXXI). It appears from these in- 
trospections that the different methods employed by 
the subjects fully account for the differences in the 
various amounts of transfer. Subject XXXI, who 
had the best time-saving method, also had the largest 
amount of transfer, while Subject XXVII, who had a 
method that was least advantageous in time-saving, 
had the smallest amount of transfer. Moreover, ac- 
cording to these introspections, all three subjects had 
slightly modified their methods brought over from the 
training, and in this modification Subject XXXI had 
again shown his superiority in making the most of 
his own method. This was his explanation: ^'In the 
practising pages, when the object was to look for con- 
secutive letters that were in common, m^^ method of 
attending to the three central letters of the words to 
be compared would have failed in a case like this: 



74 VISUAL SENSE TRAINING IN CHILDREN 

abcde fghed. Though the three central letters 
were all different, yet there was the possibility of 
having two consecutive letters in common, namely, e d. 
For this reason I had to attend to the ends of the words 
more or less, and I did not have the full confidence in 
my method, as I had in that of the last test." The 
fact that he had the largest amount of transfer is 
thus explained. 

Summary for Experiment 3 

1. In marking five-letter nonsense words the amount 
of improvement depended directly upon the method 
that was developed in practice. This is but a repeti- 
tion of the finding in the training of Experiment 2. 

2. The older subjects showed a capacity for develop- 
ing efficient methods decidedly superior to that of 
the younger subjects. 

3. The means of transfer, in this experiment, were 
primarily the methods that were developed during 
the training and applied in the test, albeit these meth- 
ods were sometimes modified in the test. 

4. An adult subject was better able than a youth 
to apply his method in a changed situation. 

5. The amount of transfer seemed to vary pari 
passu with the efficiency with which the method was 
applievi in the changed situation. 



CONCLUSIONS 

1. Sense training. Experiment 1 indicates that 
visual discrimination improves very slowly. This 
slowness is accounted for in two ways. 

First, it is probably impossible to train any sense 
organ and secure much direct improvement in it, due 
to the limited number of the nerve endings. Since 
the rods and cones in the eyes of a person are determined 
at birth, no amount of training can create more of these 
nerve endings. According to the time record, we see 
plainly that the improvement in eliminating wrong 
judgments is largely a matter of visual adjustment. 
For, when the subjects spent more time in looking 
at the various shades of colors, forms and sizes, there 
was generally a decrease in the number of wrong judg- 
ments, and when the subjects tried to reduce their 
time, there was generally an increase in the number of 
wrong judgments. The very fact that to a certain 
amount of time corresponds a certain number of wrong 
judgments indicates that no change has taken place 
in the eyes and that a certain amount of time is neces- 
sary that they may see more clearly. 

Second, the slow improvement may be attributed 
to the fact that the subjects never realized that they 
could see more correctly by using more time, so the 
difficulty of the whole situation was never localized. 
The fact that the reaction time had anything to do 
with the number of successful judgments had not 
only escaped the detection of the children in the ex- 
periment, but even adults on whom the training series 
was tried in the summer of 1913 were unable to explain 
why they made better scores on some days than on 

75 



76 VISUAL SENSE TRAINING IN CHILDREN 

others. During this training series there was one sub- 
ject, an instructor in psychology, who had an idea that 
improvement always resulted in shortening the reaction 
time and tried definitely to reduce it. After five weeks 
of training his number of wrong judgments was slightly 
higher than at the time when he first started. The 
record was never shown to the subjects and it seemed 
that they were unable to appreciate the help which 
came from lengthening the reaction time from a quar- 
ter to a half of a second. The subjects in Experiment 

1, being unable to localize the source of their faults, 
did not develop a method for improvement. In Ex- 
periments 2 and 3, on the other hand, the situation 
was altogether different. Here, in marking the letters 
of the alphabet, the subjects were able to recognize at 
once the difficulty to be overcome, whether it was to 
divide the alphabet into two halves, as in Experiment 

2, or to attend to certain letters and to ignore others, 
as in Experiment 3. They were thus able to develop 
methods and improved quickly. 

Sense training in Experiment 1 not only failed to bring 
about rapid specific improvement, but its effect on 
related functions was also small as compared with 
the effect upon the related functions of marking letters 
of the alphabet. Because the method of improvement 
in the training was not clearly recognized, there was 
made no purposive application in the test of methods 
developed in the training. For the same reason the 
amounts of transfer in Experiment 1 are also irregular 
and seem to be the work of chance, while in Experi- 
ment 3 the amounts of transfer are regular and pro- 
portionate to bhe efficiency of the methods employed. 
Sense training or the education of the senses is a mis- 
nomer. The Montessori method should better be 



CONCLUSIONS 77 

called education through the senses instead of ''o/" the 
senses. Mont essori says : 

"It is exactly in the repetition of the exercises that 
the education of the senses consists; their aim is not 
that the child shall know colors, forms and the differ- 
ent qualities of objects, but that he refine his senses 
through an exercise of attention, of comparison, of 
judgment. These exercises are true intellectual gym- 
nastics."2i 

In this quotation there is some obscurity as to what 
is educated. Is it the senses, through an exercise of 
attention, of comparison, of judgment, or is it these 
intellectual functions through an exercise of the senses? 
Evidently it is the latter. 

2. Transfer. This word, as commonly understood 
with reference to formal discipline, means the applica- 
tion of a habit or a method or an ideal to a situation 
other than the one in which it was developed. The 
use of the psychological term, habit, has been very 
unfortunate for "Upon the question of the possibility 
of transferring a specific habit from the situation in 
which it has been formed to another situation, there 
has been a great deal of controversy. "22 Bagley thinks 
that a generalized habit is impossible for "the term 
is a psychological absurdity. The very essence of a 
habit is the specific character of its response. "^^ But 
Colvin asserts: "There seems to be no reason in the 
nature of the case, as far as the mechanism of the 
nervous system is concerned, however, why we may 
not think of several stimuli resulting in a particular 
response along a definite path of conduction, or, why, 



21 Montessori, M., The Montessori Method, p. 360. 

22 Colvin, S. S., and Bagley, W. C, Human Behavior, p. 181. 

23 Bagley, W. C, The Educative Process, p. 204. 



78 VISUAL SENSE TRAINING IN CHILDREN 

on the other hand, we may not conceive of a single 
stimulus forming several passages of discharge. "^^ 
Breed says this is a controversy over terms rather 
than facts. A habit is either specific or general ac- 
cording to the way one looks at it. Take, for instance, 
the habit of cleanliness. It is specific in the sense 
that it is a fixed response of avoidance when dirt is 
the stimulus. Dirt on the shoes, desk or floor may 
call up the attitude of repugnance. The habit may 
also be called general, if one regards the shoes, desk 
or floor as different situations. It seems to the writer 
that the term habit should be entirely avoided in the 
problem of transfer, for two reasons. First, transfer 
in many cases is a conscious process, that is, one ap- 
plies purposively to one function a method developed 
in another. Second, in the application of the method 
there is generally a modification of it to suit the 
changed situation. Both consciousness and modi- 
fiability are characters lacking in a habit. Transfer 
of method is preferable to transfer of habit. 

3. Means of transfer. It is interesting to note that 
in previous investigations experimenters have found 
more than one means of transfer." The same thing 
was true of each of our experiments. In Experiment 1 
the means is the lengthening of the reaction time; in 
Experiment 2, the dividing of the two halves of the 
alphabet; and in Experiment 3, the attending to a 
certain kind of letters and the ignoring of others. 
It is also of interest to note that the means of transfer 
used by each individual was also the method used by 
him for improvement in training. Since the experi- 
ments were concerned with different kinds of dis- 



^Colvin, S. S., The Learning Process, p. 49. 
^^Colvin, S. S., The Learning Process, pp. 241-242. 



CONCLUSIONS 79 

crimination and the means of transfer in every case 
were conditioned by the method of improvement in 
the trained function, there can not be one means of 
transfer for all functions. The common character of 
the various means of transfer was that they were all 
some sort of method which was developed in the train- 
ing for the purpose of improvement in it, and later 
on applied to changed situations. 

4. Amount of transfer. Our experiments seem to 
indicate that the amount of transfer depends upon 
two factors: namely, purposive application of method 
and the efficiency of the method applied. In Experi- 
ment 1, none of the subjects was conscious that there 
was a method for improvement, consequently the 
amount of transfer was small. In the discrimination 
of size it amounted to only 8.67 per cent (Table 13). 
In Experiment 3, in the marking of letters (Table 21), 
wherein the subjects made purposive application of 
their methods, the amount of transfer was much 
larger. These facts seem to show that there is a pos- 
sibility of having a certain amount of transfer without 
clearly recognizing the means of transfer, but a surer 
and larger amount can be brought about by having 
the means of transfer made conscious. 

Experiment 3 shows plainly that the comparatively 
larger amounts of transfer in the last two performances 
are the result of more efficient methods. As has been 
pointed out in that experiment, the chance of getting 
hold of an efficient method depends upon two things — 
applicability of methods derived from experiences and 
the ability to apply. In both of these aspects an adult 
had the advantage over a youth. 

With regard to the best way, therefore, to realize 
the formal value of a study, our experiments point to 



80 VISUAL SENSE TRAINING IN CHILDREN 

the development of methods — methods for use in 
similar situations, efficient methods, methods conscious- 
ly apphed. 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Angell, J, R. The Doctrine of Formal Discipline in the Light of 
the Principles of General Psychology. Ed. Review, Vol. 
36, 1908, pp. 1-14. 

Baglet, W. C. Educational Values. The Macmillan Co., New- 
York, 1911. 

Bennett, C. J. C. Formal Discipline. Columbia Univ., New York, 
1905. 

Book, W. F. The Psychology of Skill. Univ. of Montana Publica- 
tions in Psych Dlogy, Bulletin No. 53. 

Bryan, W. L., and Harter, N. Studies in the Physiology and Psy- 
chology of the Telegraphic Language. Psych. Review, 
Vol. 4, 1897, pp. 27-53. Studies on the Telegraphic 
Language. The Acquisition of a Hierarchy of Habits. 
Psych. Review, Vol. 6, 1899, pp. 345-375. 

CoLviN, S. S. A Partial Justification of the so-called Dogma of 
Formal Disciphne. School of Education, Bulletin No. 2, 
Univ. of Illinois. 

CoLViN, S. S. The Learning Process. The Macmillan Co., New York, 
1911. 

CoovER, J. E., and Angell, F. General Practice Effect of Special 
Exercise. Am. Jour. Psych., Vol. 18, 1907, pp. 328-340. 

Foster, W. S. The Effect of Practice upon Visuahzing and upon the- 
Reproduction of Visual Impressions. Jour. Ed. Psych., 
Vol. 2, 1911, pp. 11-22. 

Fracker, G. C. On the Transference of Training in Memory. Psych. 
Review, Monograph Supp., Vol. 9, No. 2, 1908, pp. 56-102. 

Heck, W. H. Mental Discipline and Educational Values. John Lane 
Company, New York, Second Edition, 1911. 

Henderson, E. N. Formal Disciphne from the Standpoint of Ana- 
Ij^tic and Experimental Psychology. Education, Vol. 29,. 
1908-9, pp. 601-613. 

Hinsdale, B. A. The Dogma of Formal Disciphne. Ed. Review, Vol. 
8, 1894, pp. 128-142. 

HoRNE, H. H. Psychological Principles of Education. The Macmillan 
Co., New York, 1906. 

The Practical Influence of the New Views of Formal Disci- 
pline. Education, Vol. 29, 1908-9, pp. 614-623. 

81 



82 VISUAL SENSE TRAINING IN CHILDREN 

JuDD, C. H. The Relation of Special Training to General Intelligence. 

Ed. Review, Vol. 36, 1908, pp. 28-42. 
Meiklejohn, a. Is Mental Training a Myth? Ed. Review, Vol. 37, 

1909, pp. 126-141. 
Metjmann, E. The Psychology of Learning. D. Appleton & Co., 

New York, 1913. 
Montessori, M. The Montessori Method. Frederick S. Stokes Co., 

New York, Fourth Edition, 1912. 
Peterson, H. A. Note on a Retrial of Professor James' Experiment 

on Memory Training. Psych. Review, Vol. 19, 1912, pp. 

491-492. 
PiLLSBURY, W. B. The Effects of Training on Memory. Ed. Review, 

Vol. 36, 1908, pp. 15-27. 
Ruediger, W. C. The Indirect Improvement of Mental Function 

Thru Ideals. Ed. Review, Vol. 36, 1908, pp. 364-371. 
Ruediger, W. C. The Principles of Education. Houghton MifBin 

Co., Boston, New York and Chicago, 1910. 
RuGER, H. A. The Psychology of Efficiency. Archives of Psych., Vol. 

2, No. 15, June, 1910. 
Sleight, W. G. Memory and Formal Training. Brit. Jour. Psych., 

Vol. 4, 1911, pp. 386-457. 
Starch, D. Transfer of Training in Arithmetical Operations. Jour. 

Ed. Psych., Vol. 2, 1911, pp. 306-310. 
Thorndike, E. L., and Woodworth, R. S. The Influence of Improve- 
ment in One Mental Function upon the Efficiency of Other 

Functions. Psych. Review, Vol. 8, 1901, pp. 247-261, 

384-395 and 553-564. 
Thorndike, E. L. The Effect of Practice in the Case of a Purely 

Intellectual Function. Am. Jour. Psych., Vol. 19, 1908, 

pp. 374-384. 
Thorndike, E. L. Educational Psychology, Vol. I and II. Teacher's 

College, Columbia Univ., New York, 1913, 1914. 
Winch, W. H. The Transfer of Improvement in Memory in School- 
Children. Brit. Jour. Psych., Vol. 2, 1906-8, pp. 284-293, 

and Vol. 3, 1909-10, pp. 386-405. 
Winch, W. H. Accuracy in School Children. Does Improvement 

in Numerical Accuracy "Transfer"? Jour. Ed. Psych., 

Vol. 1, 1910, pp. 557-589. 

Further Work on Numerical Accuracy in School Children. 

Does Improvement in Numerical Accuracy Transfer? 

Jour. Ed. Psych., Vol. 2, 1911, pp. 262-271. 



INDEX 

Age, and improvement 71 

Apparatus 

for training 16 

for testing pitch discrimination 28 

for testing color discrimination 39 

for testing size discrimination 46 

Bagley 3, 5, 77 

Bennett 36 

Berry. 15 

Binet tests 14, 59 

Breed 4, 78 

Color 

discrimination 39 

stimuli used in 39, 42 

results in tests of 43 

Colvin 3, 5, 77 

Coover and Angell 3, 37, 38 

Disciplinists 1 

Ebert and Meumann 3 

Formal discipline 5, 6, 77 

Foster 4 

Fracker 1, 2, 3 

Habit, in relation to transfer 3, 77 

Heck 5 

Herbartians 5 

Incubation 9 

Individual differences 7, 14, 25, 43, 63, 66, 71, 73 

Interference, of training 52 

83 



84 VISUAL SENSE TRAINING IN CHILDREN 

James 3, & 

Maturation 8 

Method 

as means of transfer 3, 63, 76, 78, 80 

of training 16 

the Individual 6 

the One-group 7 

the Two-group 8 

the Three-Group 11 

Montessori 13, 14, 76 

Pillsbury 4 

Pitch 

discrimination 28 

stimuli used in " 28 

fatigue in 33 

results in tests of 33 

Plato 5 

Reaction time, and improvement 21, 26, 43, 45, 56, 58, 75 

Ruediger. . 1, 3, 5 

Ruger 3 

Scripture and Davis 3 

Sense training -. 13, 21, 26, 39, 43, 45, 63, 75, 76 

Size 

discrimination 46 

stimuli used in 46 

results in tests of 48 

Swift 9 

Testing 

of pitch discrimination 28 

of color discrimination 39 

of size discrimination 46 

Thomdike 1, 2, 3, 5, 7, 8, 9 



INDEX 85 

Training 

method of 16 

apparatus used in 16 

improvement from 21, 26 

in relation to interest 45, 56, 58 

means of improvement through .... 24, 26, 43, 45, 58, 63, 66, 69, 78 

interference of 52 

rate of improvement in 24, 67, 69 

Transfer 

extent of 2 

amount of 2, 33, 39, 43, 48, 52, 55, 58, 62, 73, 74, 79 

means of 3, 63, 73, 74, 78, 79 

and common elements 58 

meaning of 77 

from visual to auditory discrimination 33, 39 

from size to size 55 

from size to color 43 

Whitney 4 

Winch 1 



f 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



021 339 577 4 



